


The Time Lord Victorius

by LilithKawanami



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: And a lot of manipulation, Children of Earth is mentioned, Dark Doctor (Doctor Who), M/M, Post-Episode: s04e16 Waters of Mars, Seriously Dark, There's torture, Time Lord Victorious, evil doctor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-16 09:31:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 49,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5823421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilithKawanami/pseuds/LilithKawanami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if after the Waters of Mars, the Doctor hadn't looked back to see the gun flash bringing Adelaide's death? If he never regretted his actions and didn't return to who he was? If he allowed the darkness to take hold? The Time Lord Victorious is who he is, he doesn't hold back, and he knows the universe is his, to do with as he pleases. Dark!Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Doctor Who or Torchwood, although I do own several of the planets and people brought up within.  
> This story is cross-posted on fanfiction.net (originally under Jazzi12, now under the same name as here), as I'm working on transferring my works onto AO3 instead.  
> This is a Complete story, and I'll update probably two or three times a week until all the chapters are posted, maybe more if there's enough of an immediate response.  
> Please, enjoy. It does get kind of graphic in some places, but nothing too bad.

Prologue

 

The TARDIS materialized in a street, snow spinning all around them. The Doctor opened the doors, followed out by Adelaide, Mia, and Yuri. They all look around, as the Doctor watches them for a few moments.  


“Isn’t anyone going to thank me?” he asked casually, his hands in his pockets.  


Gadget wheeled around slowly, before powering down, all its lights turning off.  


“He’s lost his signal. Doesn’t know where he is.”  


“That’s my house,” Adelaide said.  


“Don’t you get it? This is the 21st November, 2059. Same day on Earth. And it’s snowing! I love snow,” The Doctor grinned, turning around and looking up at it.  


“What is that thing?” Mia asked. “It’s…bigger…I mean, It’s bigger on the inside! Who the hell are you?” She turned, taking one last glance at them before running off. Yuri watched her hesitantly, like he wanted to follow, but looked at Adelaide instead.  


“Look after her,” Adelaide said.  


“Yes ma’am,” Yuri replied before running after her.  


The Doctor watched as Adelaide slowly moved towards him.  


“You saved us.”  


“Just think though. Your daughter, and your daughter’s daughter, you can see them again. Family reunion!”  


“But I’m supposed to be dead.”  


The Doctor smiled. “Not anymore.”  


“But Susie, my granddaughter, the person she’s supposed to become…might never exist now.”  


“Nah! Captain Adelaide can inspire her face-to-face. Different details, but the story’s the same.”  


“You can’t know that, and if my family changes, the whole of history could change. The future of the human race…No one should have that much power.”  


“Tough,” he replied, staring at her as she slowly backed away.  


“You should have left us there,” she said.  


“Adelaide, I’ve done this sort of thing before, in small ways, saved some little people. But never someone as important as you. Oh, I’m good.”  


“Little people? What like Mia and Yuri? Who decides they’re so unimportant? You?”  


“For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I’m not. I’m the winner. That’s who I am,” he replied, “the Time Lord Victorious.”  


“And there’s no one to stop you.”  


“No.”  


“This is wrong, Doctor. I don’t care who you are. The Time Lord Victorious is wrong.”  


“That’s for me to decide. Now you better get home,” he said, changing his tone. “Oh, it’s all locked up. You’ve been away. Still,” he said, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, “that’s easy.” He unlocked the front door, and it swung open a crack. “All yours.”  


“Is there nothing you can’t do?” she asked as she moved past him, her eyes slightly filled with horror.  


“Not anymore.”  


She moved past him, unable to say anymore, slowly walking up the steps to her front door. She looked back at the Doctor as he turned away from her, heading back to the TARDIS. He missed her take out her blaster, his back still to her as a light flashed in the window, too caught up in his thoughts. He missed the sound of the gun going off, stepping into the TARDIS. He missed history righting itself, as he walked up to the console. He missed the Ood standing outside, as he took off into the vortex, ready to do literally anything. No one could stop him, ever. A manic grin crossed his face as endless possibilities swarmed through his mind. The universe was his.  



	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It had been almost two years since the events on Mars, and he had been right. The history of Earth had not been changed just because he saved a life from a fixed point, he had checked. It had been the first thing he had done after stepping into the TARDIS, a quick hop into the future, and finding everything exactly as it was, except for the legend of Captain Adelaide Brooke, the savior of Earth, and the two other survivors of what happened on Mars. After confirming he had been right, that he could do anything, he had done just that. Any spur of the moment thought in his head that he usually pushed back do to the possible danger it could cause, he did. He stopped following his rules, because he knew there would be no consequences. 

Now, he was sitting in the belly of a prison ship, locked in a cell, with significantly more security than his fellow inmates. 

He had a thin metal crown on his head, a neural dampener, and while the other prisoners were allowed to roam their cells, the Time Lord was strapped to a chair, chains wrapped around his ankles, across his lap, around his stomach and chest, around both his wrists, and around his neck. Another piece of technology was also strapped around his neck, to prevent him from being able to speak. All of the guards had been warned of this alien, and all were on high alert around him, most refusing to be near him for more than a couple of minutes. They were all afraid of him, although they had been assured by the warden he was immobilized; he couldn't harm them. It was his eyes, the deep brown that followed all of their movements, ancient compared to the rest of him, and so full of feeling, all the thoughts of the universe racing through them, but also that small glint of madness, the Oncoming Storm brewing just beneath the surface, and it was terrifying. They had all heard of what he had done, the single handed destruction of Alrashia, the downfall of Zao'lina, the explosion of the Raoshta on the planet Hsiodine, and so, so many more. The other prisoners whispered of his achievements, some with jealousy, and others with all the devotion one gave to their idol, and this made it even worse. The warden had been forced to make his cell have actual walls, feet thick, rather than bars as all the other inmates had. Extra precautions were taken against the Time Lord, as the men knew it was their duty to prevent him from causing further harm. They just didn't know if they would be able to. 

The guard on duty outside his cell risked one last glance at the prisoner, waves of fear crashing through him as their eyes met, and he shivered before quickly closing the window with a loud clang, taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm his nerves. He couldn't wait for his shift to be over. 

The Doctor waited a few minutes after the window shut before moving, all semblances of him being trapped removed instantly. He easily removed his arms from the chains, but left the rest as they were, as it was only his arms that he needed. They thought they had activated the neural dampener, and they thought they had thoroughly chained him to the chair. The truth was, over the years of not holding back, the Doctor's mental capabilities had grown, more than anyone could have imagined. He was the Time Lord Victorious; a tiny prison cell wasn't enough to hold him back. He'd projected images into the guard, making them think they turned on the dampener, making them think the chains were as tight as they could go, but most importantly, he made them ignore the fact that he had a slowly growing pile of wires and scrap metal surrounding him, brought to him by none other than the guards themselves, not that they would remember. The truth was he could easily escape. But to where? They'd put him in this prison on purpose, moving his TARDIS as far away from him as possible, so that he would know that even if he escaped from his cell, he would never find his way back to her. How wrong they were. He pulled the half-built contraption into his lap, again working on it. He could do it while the guards were watching, he had the mental capacity to, but it was easier to just do it when they weren't looking. 

Less than half an hour later, and the device was ready. 

He had built a transmitter, one that would travel through space and time, directly to the vortex manipulator of one Captain Jack Harkness. 

_"Jack."_

Jack Harkness sat up in his seat immediately, now aware that he had been dozing off behind his desk. All feelings of sleep were gone now. That had been the Doctor's voice. He couldn't have dreamed it. He looked around his office frantically, and even ran into the hub, disregarding the stares from his Torchwood teammates, as he searched. After ten minutes, he gave up, returning to his office, and completely ignoring the eyes following him. He had been so sure… 

_"Jack."_

He was sure he hadn't imagined it this time, and sure enough, a light was blinking on his vortex manipulator, although what it meant he couldn't be sure. But the Doctor's voice had sounded so pained, and he knew he had to do whatever he could to help. He pressed the button, and he felt something probe towards his mind. He closed his eyes and focused on maintaining his mental barriers, before recognizing the golden light as the Doctor's consciousness, and hesitantly lowered his defenses. 

Inside his mind, a room was formed, glowing in the same golden light, and he noticed it looked strangely like a cell, before turning his head and seeing the Doctor, chained to a chair, his brown eyes wide with fear. Jack took in all of the Doctor's appearance, noting the blood stains on the grey shirt he was wearing, the multiple wounds on his face and arms, but most importantly, the trails of dried tears mixed with blood staining his face. The Doctor never cried. 

"Doc," Jack said weakly. 

"Jack," the Doctor smiled slightly, before wincing as the wounds on his face stretched and tore, fresh blood beginning to flow. 

"Where are we?" Jack asked quietly. 

"You're still in Cardiff," the Doctor said hoarsely, "this is where I physically am. I'm sorry…I didn't want you to see me like this…They put a neural dampener on me, I can't control the setting…" fresh tears fell from his eyes, and Jack's heart immediately broke. He wanted the Doctor to feel happy. 

The background suddenly changed, and the Doctor was sitting on a grassy hill instead of the chair, and they were outside in the sun, the whole place stained with a blue tint. 

"Thank you," the Doctor said gratefully, and Jack noticed that his injuries were gone now, along with some of the pain in his voice. He appeared in his signature pinstriped suit again. 

"You're welcome, but I don't know what I did," Jack replied slowly. 

"You used your mind to change the background, it's easier now, for me to talk, now that I don't have to work as hard to sustain the connection…" he seemed to notice Jack's eyes on him, and he paused the thought. “You want to know what happened." 

Jack nodded, although he didn't feel completely sure. 

"I'm trapped in a prison Jack, for some of the universe's most dangerous criminals." 

Jack's eyes widened in shock. The Doctor, a criminal? 

The Doctor either ignored Jack's reaction, or didn't notice it, because he continued. "The warden…He turned bad. He got greedy. He knew I was the last Time Lord, and he wanted my secrets…He wanted my TARDIS," the Doctor took a shaky breath, "and he was willing to do anything to get to us. I was just passing by, I swear, when I noticed a fight on a planet below. I landed to see if I could help," the Doctor stopped talking again, closing his eyes as if the memories physically hurt. 

"Doc, it's okay. You don't need to tell me the rest," Jack said. 

The Doctor nodded gratefully, his long fingers messing with the grass in Jack's dreamscape, avoiding Jack's eyes. 

"I need help," he said suddenly, once more looking up into Jack's eyes. "I…I don't know how much more I can take," his voice cracked on the last few syllables. 

Jack looked at the Time Lord, and he could practically feel the fear and the pain rolling off him in waves. As he looked into the once kind eyes, all he could see in them now was fear. 

"What can I do to help?" 

The Doctor's lips twisted into a cold smile as he broke off communications with Jack, claiming he could hear a guard returning for him. It wasn't a complete lie. A guard would be coming. 

He focused his mental energy on the guard outside the door, planting little whispers in his mind to go check on him, to come into the cell and make sure he was still secured. 

By now, the Doctor had hidden his machine away again, and slipped back into the restraints, and he watched as the door opened, and a slightly fearful guard entered. 

That wouldn't do at all. 

He placed feelings of courage inside the man's head, planting vivid dreams of thrashing the Doctor for his crimes, making him pay for what he had done. He played up the man's arrogance, and the feeling that he was completely in control, and then destroyed the thoughts of his fear of the Doctor, replacing them with images of a thin, feeble alien that needed to be taught a lesson. 

His work done, the Doctor left the man's mind, and waited for the beating that would follow. He had shown Jack an image of a beaten man, and when Jack came to rescue him, that's what he would find. 

He had, of course, formulated a plan that involved Jack teleporting onto the ship, fighting his way to the Doctor's cell, and saving him. Jack asked how he would be able to, as his vortex manipulator was still broken from the last time the Doctor had made it stop working, and the Doctor gave him the information he would need to fix it. Jack asked if he thought it was dangerous for him to have the power to teleport through time and space again, but the Doctor merely said that he trusted him, noticing how Jack had glowed afterwards. He knew of Jack's long-lasting crush on him, so he also knew that he would stop at nothing to save him, and also wouldn't listen to the rumors of his crimes. Jack would be loyal until the end, and the Doctor knew he would arrive soon, he had given him coordinates a week into the future from where he was now, so that he'd have more realistic wounds. He also knew that he wouldn't be able to continually fool Jack by altering his perception of the Doctor, so he would need the physical injuries to make his story more believable. 

The man did exactly as the Doctor had encouraged, and started beating at him mercilessly. The Doctor acted as if he was in pain, screaming at the right moments, begging the guard, until after a few hours, he stopped, with promises to return later to continue where they left off, as if he had done it before. And according to the man's mind, he had. From the beginning to the end of his shift, the man had memories of beating the Doctor senseless and enjoying every second of it. 

The Doctor kept the fearful appearance until the guard had left, before dropping the act, and letting himself smile again, making more blood fall from a cut that was now on his cheek. Blood flowed freely from several wounds on his body, dripping continuously, and staining his face and shirt. He was already in a bad condition after only one session, but the Doctor did not physically feel any actual pain. He felt the stinging of the cuts on his face, but only that. Instead, he was filled with adrenaline, an unstoppable glee at once more being in a sort-of fight. He knew the guard would only have several more goes at him until Jack arrived and he would be forced to take on his old persona again, at least around Jack, so he changed his mind about only making one guard his torturer. He'd make all of his guards do it, but sneak inside their minds and experience it first hand; the bloodlust, and he would drive their hands. He would feel the thrill and the joy of beating somebody to a pulp, even if it was himself. It would make things more believable the more hurt he was, although he wouldn't feel the pain. 

With a smile on his face, he heard the sound of his guard being switched and started again, controlling the man's thoughts, making him come into the room, and starting the process once more.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It took Jack longer than he would have liked to fix the manipulator, anxious to rescue the Doctor from the hellhole he was in. His team wasn't sure what was happening, and he didn't give them the answers they were seeking, knowing the Doctor wouldn't want them to know. He worked night and day, until it was finally done. He was relieved, knowing the Doctor would no longer be tortured. He called a team meeting, and Gwen and Ianto, along with the newer members of Torchwood, Martha and Mickey, who had decided to join after freelancing for a while, gratefully hurried to the conference room, hoping Jack was finally going to tell them what was happening. Martha and Mickey had both travelled with the Doctor, so he knew he'd have to word it carefully, so they wouldn't want to come with him.

He waited for them to all take their seats, and all thoughts left his mind, and he had no idea what to say. He settled for, "The Doctor is in trouble, and I'm leaving to rescue him. I should be back soon."

Collective gasps spread through the room, because although Gwen and Ianto hadn't been companions, they both knew of the legendary Doctor.

"What happened to him?" Martha asked, fear in her voice. Mickey grabbed her hand in his, trying to comfort her at least a little bit.

Jack still didn't have the words. "Martha, I'm going to need you to have medical supplies ready…I'll try to teleport us as close to the medbay as possible."

"Medbay! Jack, is he okay?" Martha exclaimed, jumping up and immediately fearing the worst.

"He will be," Jack said, no longer wanting to wait. He thought hard, trying to remember the coordinates the Doctor had sent him, before rapidly typing them in.

"Hold on, boss. I'm coming," Mickey said. "Whatever has happened to the Doctor, he's my friend too."

"Me too," Gwen said standing. "If he's hurt, you're going to need backup."

"Sorry," Jack said, pressing the button before either of them could get close enough to hitch a ride.

He found himself inside a dark ship, and immediately knew he was in the right place. He pulled out his gun, and started down one of the hallways.

He passed many guards along the way, but spared none on his way to get to the Doctor. He could tell he was getting close, and was starting to hope he'd make it in time, before anything else happened, until he heard a scream that definitely was the Doctor's.

He took off at a run down the hallways, following the sound, panic in his heart.

The second the Doctor had felt Jack on the ship, he forced his way into the mind of the guard, and made him tighten all the chains an excruciating amount, so that they bit into his flesh and actually tore the skin, so much, that it actually seemed as if they had been that way the entire time. Then, he forced the guard to continue hitting him, making sure the thought would stay after the Doctor's presence was gone. He already knew the box around his neck would prevent words, but screams didn't count, so he got the guard to turn that on as well, before causing him to activate the neural dampener for real, so that Jack would see that it was real. Moments before the dampener was fully activated, he wiped the memories of turning the devices on, so the guard wouldn't be suspicious.

It was still around ten minutes before Jack reached his cell, blowing the door off its hinges. Jack stepped in, taking in the scene, and the guard with his hand raised, a club in his hand that he had been about to hit the Doctor with.

Jack reacted without thinking, immediately sending a bullet through his head. He then ran over to the Doctor, trying to undo the chain, but they were padlocked in place.

"Where's the key?" he asked.

The Doctor motioned towards the guard on the floor, acting the Doctor that Jack knew, although with the fear in his eyes.

Jack immediately rolled the body over, unclipping the keys and unchaining the Doctor, before trying to help him stand.

The Doctor found that he really couldn't, and realized he had been hurt more than he'd originally intended. He motioned towards the box at his neck, and at the keys in Jack's hand, and Jack caught on, removing both the dampener and the box.

"Thank you," he gasped out, as though he hadn't spoken in a while, although truthfully he hadn’t. He hadn’t needed to.

Jack just wrapped his arms around the Doctor, both as a hug, and to support him.

"You shouldn't have killed them Jack," he said, pretending to be sad.

"I should have known Doc, even after they did this," he motioned to his battered body, "you still value their lives. I don't regret it."

The Doctor just closed his eyes and nodded, pretending to seem tired, although inside he was proud of Jack for killing so many of them. His eyes snapped back open as an alarm blared, and he let his voice waver as if in fear. "We have to get out of here," he said urgently.

Jack nodded; helping the Doctor place a hand on his vortex manipulator, before bringing them both into Torchwood, just as the warden reached the door of the Doctor's cell, screeching the word, "No." Seconds before they teleported, the Doctor made eye contact with the warden, grinning triumphantly at an angle Jack wouldn't be able to see, before slipping back into the fearful one in time for him to be swarmed by Jack's team, and fading from consciousness as his body felt what his mind wouldn't.

Jack picked the Doctor up bridal style, carrying him the rest of the way to one of the beds in the medical center, Martha's eyes widening in shock as she saw the state of him.

Jack could tell she had frozen, so he turned on her, and with a deep breath, said, "Right now, you need to be more than his friend. You need to be a doctor, because he needs you. If you can't handle it, tell me right now, because I will find someone else, although I don't know if he will be able to wait that long."

Martha took a shaky breath, and nodded, beginning to tend to the Doctor's wounds.

Jack was grateful, he honestly didn't know what he would do if she had been unable to calm herself down.

The next hours were painful for everyone, as Martha had shoved them all out of the room so she could work without an audience. Jack was terrified, not knowing if he had made it in time, and he could hardly feel Ianto's usually comforting arm wrapped around his shoulders. His head snapped up immediately however, when Martha entered the room, her head and shoulders slumped.

Jack stood, rushing over to her. "What's wrong? Is he okay?"

Martha breathed in deeply. "I'm pretty sure he is going to be okay. He's asking to see you, Jack."

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and he practically ran into the medbay where he knew the Doctor would be laying. He missed the expression on Ianto's face, too eager to see the Time Lord.

"Jack," he heard the Doctor call.

"I'm here, Doc," he grinned, coming up beside his bed and sitting in a chair Martha had set there.

The Doctor looked way better now that all the crusted blood was removed and bandages were covering all the cuts from the chains and cuts on his face, stiches in the particularly deep wounds. Jack still noticed however, how pale he looked, his skin white enough for his freckles to stand out, making him look younger and even more fragile.

The Doctor smiled a little, looking tired. "Thank you," he whispered, holding out his hand.

Jack took it, and tried not to let it show how worried he was at how cold it was. "It's okay, Doc. Everything is okay now. They won't hurt you again, I promise."

He watched as the Time Lord's blinks grew longer, and recognized the signs that he was falling asleep, but when he tried to get up, to let him rest, his grip grew tighter, and his eyes opened again, fear flooding them until Jack promised he wouldn't leave. And he didn't. Jack stayed with the Doctor, holding his hand for hours, watching as the fear faded from his face and a look of peace fell across his features. He watched the rise and fall of his chest, and the monitor hooked up to him, showing his twin hearts beating, and he felt relieved. He had made it in time.

Lying in the bed, he forced himself to look tired, and forced his expression to smooth afterwards. He needed Jack to truly think he was still the same person, otherwise when the warden began to hunt him down, and he would definitely try, then Jack might realize he had chosen the wrong side, and help with his imprisonment. He knew if there was anyone that could get him back into that cell, it would be the immortal man. The first time they had been lucky, and caught him unaware, but he still managed to kill more than half of the men before he was overwhelmed. Not to mention he still needed to find his TARDIS. She could be anywhere, and he wouldn't find her without Torchwood's help.

With the opportunity to think uninterrupted, he began to arrange his thought, form an exact plan, when he thought of something, and almost grinned before remembering to keep his expression smooth. Jack had more than a little crush on him. He figured it wouldn't be too bad to be with the immortal man, and if Jack thought he loved him, then he would fight tooth and nail for him. And he would also love to see the expression on Teaboy's face when he realized he really was just a plaything to Jack. Satisfied, the Doctor allowed himself to drift off for real, his mind slipping into dreams, and images of his first victory fled through his brain.

Jack looked up from the Doctor as Martha walked into the room. She had been in several times, checking up on the Doctor. This time she handed him a coffee, and sat down next to him. He nodded to her gratefully, taking a sip.

"I'm worried about him Jack. He is still sleeping…For anyone else, it would be normal, but it's been hours, and he never sleeps more than a couple…" Martha sighed. She was right, and Jack knew that. The Doctor had been asleep for almost 8 hours now, and Jack was worried too.

He heard a soft knock on the door, and he looked up again as Ianto entered. Ianto walked over to him, wrapping his arms around Jack's neck comfortingly.

"From what I've heard of him, he will be okay."

"He was on a prison ship being tortured! You can't know that for sure," Jack snapped.

"A prison ship?" Ianto narrowed his eyes. "You broke him out of prison? Who is he Jack? When is the last time you saw him? How can you know for sure he is innocent?"

"I know him," Jack said angrily. "He has saved this planet more times than I can count. He is not a bad person, and he never will be. Who knows how long he was in there for, and when I killed the man who was torturing him, do you know what he did? He told me I shouldn't have killed them. That's what kind of man he is; compassionate even to those who don't deserve it."

"Six months," a voice said softly, and they all turned to look at the Doctor.

"What?" Jack said softly, all signs of anger gone.

"I was there for six months," the Doctor repeated, taking a deep breath.

Jack squeezed his hand, turning his back on Ianto. "It's okay, everything will be fine now," he whispered, as he saw the pain still in the Time Lord's eyes.

The Doctor closed his eyes in thanks, still gripping Jack's hand.

"Why did you wait six months to contact Jack? And why him? You must have had other friends that were closer and could help you with less hassle," Ianto said.

Jack shot him a look, but the Doctor shook his head at him.

"It took me six months before I was able to. They put a neural dampener on me so I was unable to get a message out to anyone. Even with the heightened powers of a Time Lord, it was six months before I was able to overpower the machine enough to get a message through. It went to Jack because…" the Doctor paused, a slight blush coming over his cheeks, "because I trust him, more than anyone."

Jack looked at the Doctor, feeling his heart swell, his eyes widened in shock. He had thought the Doctor had contacted him because it was easier with his vortex manipulator, or that it was because he couldn't die so there would be no risk of him getting hurt. He saw the truth now, in the Doctor's face. It was because the Doctor trusted him. Jack smiled widely, no longer caring that he had been sitting by the bed for hours, no longer caring about himself. The Doctor trusted him.

The others left the room, leaving the two men alone as the Doctor began to drift off again, and Jack was so consumed in watching the Doctor, he missed Ianto's angry glare at the Doctor as he left the room.

 


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Although Jack missed Ianto’s angry expression, the Doctor hadn’t, and he was secretly happy at the man’s jealousy. The other man’s distress gave him pleasure, especially since he knew he was the cause.

Over the next couple of weeks, Jack remained beside his bed, at the Doctor’s own insistence, while he healed. He caught up with Martha and Mickey, reveling over their marriage with fake happiness. He caught up with Gwen, telling her the story of the Gelth, and the woman she looked like, Gwyneth. The only one that seemed less than pleased to have him there was Ianto. When the Doctor was well enough to walk around again, the man frowned as soon as he entered the same room, hatred burning in his eyes. The Doctor pretended not to notice, but he was keeping an eye on the man. He didn’t know what the teaboy might do if he was angry enough. The Doctor might be forced to stop him, or teach him a lesson.

As he walked into the main room of the base, he felt Ianto’s cold eyes following him again, and he wondered if he should just act now, punish him to prevent future problems, as he had punished the Frunyots. He closed his eyes at the memory; landing on their planet, and finding it in shambles, the people divided into the rich and the poor, with the poor subject to pain and torture at the hands of the rich. He gave the rich a chance to change, but he had known they would refuse. They were too far gone, and their minds wouldn’t be changed. With the new knowledge that he could punish them however he liked, and a chance meeting with a young girl covered in scars from when one of the rich lit her on fire for their amusement, he burned down all their houses after making sure they were all locked inside, making sure each and every one of them died for their crimes. The whole planet had smelt like burning flesh for months after he had left, his work complete. He briefly wondered what Ianto would smell like if he was lit on fire. He smiled, but made sure that outwardly it looked pleasant, or at least more so than the thoughts that caused it.

“Doctor,” Martha grinned, pulling him into a hug.

“Hello,” he waved with a smile after she had pulled back. They were all happy today, excluding Ianto, because he was finally being given a clean bill of health, minus a few scratches left that were already mostly healed. No more being confined to the stupid hospital…that was reason enough to be glad. He would however, miss the anger Ianto felt every time Jack would drop whatever he was doing and go to the Time Lord’s side if he even called out for him once.

Today, he was going to begin to put his plan into action, and he asked Jack if he could speak to him alone. Jack quickly agreed, leading him into his office.

Jack shut the door behind him, in case the Doctor didn’t want the others to hear their conversation.

“It’s nice to see you looking better,” Jack smiled, trying to lighten the mood.

The Doctor rewarded him with a small half smile, as he eyed the chair in the room.

Jack could tell just from that one gaze that the Doctor didn’t want to have to sit, and he guessed it had to do with the chair he had been strapped into. Jack watched the Doctor’s internal conflict, and he waited for him to break the silence, until The Doctor finally made up his mind, and sat in the chair, closing his eyes.

Jack was surprised at how weak he looked…it used to seem like he could do anything.

He waited for the Doctor to speak first, not wanting to push him.

“I…I need your help…to find the TARDIS,” he said slowly, “I need her…I’m not…I don’t…” He took a deep breath, his eyes still closed. “I don’t feel safe without her.” He looked up at Jack, his eyes shining with tears.

Jack immediately walked over to the Doctor, closing the distance with a few strides, and he wrapped his arms around his friend, hoping he could provide at least a little bit of comfort, no matter how small. The Doctor leaned into Jack, and relaxed a little bit.

“It’s going to be alright Doc,” He whispered, strengthening his grip.

The Doctor pulled back a little bit, so he could look at Jack again, and Jack leaned his forehead against the Doctor, trying to push happy thoughts into the man. The Doctor closed his eyes, and leaned a little closer, and Jack froze as their breaths intertwined.

“Doct—,” Jack started, but was silenced as the Doctor’s lips pressed gently against his.

Jack closed his eyes, leaning into the kiss, loving every second although he knew he shouldn’t. Warmth spread through his body, and his heart soared, but he also felt guilty. The Doctor had just been through a traumatic experience. Jack doubted the kiss was because of any real feelings, but he was selfish, and let it continue until the Doctor pulled back.

“I- I’m sorry,” the Doctor whispered, before rushing out of the room.

Jack sat there, on the arm of the chair, unable to move. Jack let his fingers rise to his lips, and he closed his eyes trying to commit the moment to memory.

The Doctor walked quickly from Jack’s office, not missing the fact that Ianto was hiding behind the wall casting any angry glare in his direction, but pretending to. He knew teaboy had been hiding there, watching through the window. He’d felt his mental presence. The jealousy when Jack hugged him, and then the rage that ran through him when Jack returned the kiss. He almost wished that he could just come right out and rub it in his face, but he knew he couldn’t break cover.

Instead, he rushed through the hub and headed to the temporary room Jack had set up for him. He didn’t miss Martha’s worried eyes following him, and he knew she would be in shortly.

The Doctor sat down on the bed in the room, and twisted his features into an expression filled with shock and fear.

Sure enough, moments later, there was a timid knock on the door.

He cleared his throat, and said, “Come in.”

The door slowly opened, revealing Martha’s small figure.

“Are you alright?” she asked, seeing his expression.

He closed his eyes, before smiling and looking at her again. “I’m always alright.”

Recognizing the fact that he really wasn’t, she walked over and sat next to him. “What happened?”

“I did something…I shouldn’t have, it was stupid really. And now Jack isn’t going to want to be near me anymore,” the Doctor said, faking sadness and regret.

“What?”

“I went in there to ask him to help me find the TARDIS, and I…I kissed him Martha.”

She gasped, looking at him in shock.

“I know, I shouldn’t have…I knew I shouldn’t, but I…I couldn’t help myself.”

“Do you mean that you actually have real feelings for him?” Martha asked, failing at trying to keep surprise from her voice. Seeing the Doctor blush and turn away, she grinned. “You do, don’t you? That’s not a bad thing Doctor! I don’t think he’s going to avoid you now. In fact, I think he’s going to start hanging around more.”

The Doctor was surprised that she actually was falling for his ruse, and let some of that slide through his features.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she poked him. “Jack obviously likes you too. You’ve just been too caught up to notice.”

“Do you think so?” he asked her.

“I know so,” she grinned at him. “Now I know why you never looked at me twice,” she joked, laughing again before leaving him alone in his room.

Martha left the Doctor feeling happier. She was glad for her friends, and even more pleased that there wasn’t anything wrong with the Doctor.

She spotted Jack pacing in the conference room, frowning, and decided to have a chat with him too.

She entered the room, and Jack didn’t even look up. “Anything on your mind?” she asked with a smile.

Jack jumped, just barely registering her presence. “No,” he said quickly, “nothing.”

“Not even the Doctor?” she asked innocently. “Or maybe his, oh I don’t know, lips?”

Jack’s head snapped up so fast she thought his neck might break.

“How did you know?” he demanded.

“I’m a little bit psychic,” she joked.

“It’s not funny. I think he just did it on accident. It didn’t mean anything to him, and why should it? He’s not in a very good place right now, and he only did it because I was there.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out then,” she replied, noting the fact that he avoided the word ‘kiss.’ “Unless, of course, you’ve got it completely wrong.”

Jack shook his head, and resumed his pacing.

“Because you know, you might have misinterpreted the situation,” she said, trying to make him realize the truth.

“I know it meant nothing to him, Martha,” Jack said softly.

“Then you don’t know as much as you think.”

“What?”

“I just talked to him…” she left the sentence hanging.

“What did he say?” Jack burst out.

“You’re not the only one that’s been pining away,” she replied, turning and leaving Jack to continue his pacing.

She grinned to herself satisfied, glad that she was helping her two friends.

The Doctor fell asleep, and his mind drifted to months after the events on Mars, to the planet Azfogiun. He had found the planet being ruled by one man, Groth Manfoon, one of the most despicable people in the universe. He kept children as his slaves, working them to death, and let the majority of the adults starve. Before, the Doctor had been unable to interfere however, him being in power was a fixed point, because years later, one brave citizen would say enough is enough, and rebel against Manfoon, to save his son from slavery. The man would then change the system, and make the planet into a democracy.

Now that he knew he could change it though, that he was the one in control of the universe, he eliminated the vile man and left, leaving the people to pick up the pieces of their planet. He figured everything would just snap forwards, the man would eventually find his way to leadership, and the planet would eventually turn to the right track.

 


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Several weeks passed since Martha had revealed that the Doctor liked him too, and Jack had spent the entire time searching for traces of artron energy, trying desperately to find the Doctor his TARDIS. He knew that it was the last thing the Doctor had to remind him of his home, and had made it his mission to return it to him. He knew if he managed to, then there was a greater chance the Doctor would like him enough to act on his feelings again. He didn’t want to take advantage of the Time Lord however, because he knew he’d been in a bad place. He didn’t want the Doctor to lust after him because he had saved him, or something similar. He wanted the feelings to be real.

He let out a frustrated sigh, pushing the equipment away from him. He’d been scanning the universe for any sign, but had come up with nothing, time and time again. He’d even refined the search, but still found nothing. Almost giving up, as a last resort he hooked his vortex manipulator into the machine to give it a longer range, and started typing layers of code into it to center the search. He sat impatiently as it beeped every time the dish spun in a circle. A few minutes passed of the annoying noise, before it chimed multiple times. He was so shocked he almost missed it. He looked at the scanner. There was a faint, faint blip, right at the edge of the search area.

He let out a whoop of joy, his face automatically changing into a smile.

“What? What is it?” Gwen asked, running in after hearing his yell.

“I found the TARDIS,” he smiled at her, before running into the main room where the Doctor was sitting. “I found the TARDIS,” Jack repeated loudly.

Joy coursed through his body as he saw the sad look on the Doctor’s face replaced with one of unspeakable happiness.

“Really?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Jack nodded, and the Doctor jumped up, a grin spreading across his face.

“Where is she?”

Jack frowned slightly, “On the other side of the universe.”

“That’s okay! I can just use your vortex manipulator, hop there, and take her back here,” he said, his voice becoming the matter-of-a-fact one Jack had grown used to previously.

“There’s no way I am letting you go alone,” Jack said. “I’ll go with you, in case there are people guarding it.”

“Jack, I can’t let you do that,” the Doctor said solemnly, his expression falling. “You’ve done enough already, I should do this alone.”

“But you’re not alone Doctor,” Martha spoke up.

“Yeah, Boss. We’re all your friends here,” Mickey said.

The Doctor gave them a goofy grin. “I’ve been travelling around alone for way too long. When I get back, I’m going to reward you all with a super spectacular adventure, but please, just let me do this alone.”

Jack closed his eyes. He knew the Doctor could take care of himself, but he didn’t want to risk letting him out of his sight in case the bastards tried to capture him again. If the Doctor took his vortex manipulator to get to the TARDIS, and they were waiting for him, then Jack wouldn’t have a way to get to him again either, so he would be alone.

“I’ll be fine Jack, please,” the Doctor said, and when Jack looked into his eyes, he knew he couldn’t refuse the Time Lord.

“Okay, but if you aren’t back here in the TARDIS five minutes from when you left, I swear I’m coming after you, no matter what it takes.”

The Doctor smiled, “you better.”

The Doctor almost laughed at their stupidity. Of course the TARDIS would be guarded. The warden would know that would be the first thing he would go for after escaping. That was why he wanted to go alone. He didn’t want his friends around when he killed all the guards, and if the warden was there, he would kill him too. His grin grew menacing as he turned away from the people occupying the hub. Soon he would have his TARDIS back, and even if the warden wasn’t guarding her, then he would be able to find him, and rid himself of the pest once and for all.

Jack had returned to his office to detach his vortex manipulator from the machine, so that the Doctor could use it for travel, and was now heading back towards him. The Doctor smoothed out the smile, so that he looked genuinely happy again, and took the object from Jack, noting how he maintained his grip for a moment before letting go.

“I don’t like this, Doc,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it!” he forced his smile to become wider, slipping the manipulator onto his wrist. He then pretended to act shy, hesitating a moment. “See you soon,” he said, before pausing and typing in the coordinates, then looking back at Jack and, keeping part with the person he was playing, he laid a gentle kiss on Jack’s lips, before teleporting.

The vortex manipulator dropped him off, and he glanced around the room he was deposited in. It looked like a storage cabinet. He eased the door open a crack, and his jaw dropped slightly as he saw the masses of soldiers standing between himself and his TARDIS. As he caught sight of the glorious blue box, his breath hitched slightly. It had been too long since he had seen her. And there was an army between them. He didn’t see the warden amongst them, and figured he’d probably done the smart thing and stayed away.

The Doctor began to prepare himself to kill them all at once, when he had a better idea. He wormed his way into the minds of about half the army, and then quickly pitted them against the other half, convincing them that the others were working for him, and then did the same with the other soldiers. He watched with glee as the two sides began firing at one another, quickly turning from one organized army into a slaughter. The Doctor exited the storeroom, and worked his way into every single mind in the room, making sure none would fire at him, before walking confidently between the two armies, right up to his TARDIS. He ran his hand along the wood with a smile, before turning back to look at the blood fest. More than half the men were dead or severely injured by now, and the Doctor grinned, loving the violence of it all. He watched until only about a quarter of the men remained, a few more than a hundred, and he killed them all mentally, their bodies all slumping to the floor with one uniform thump. He then snapped his fingers and stepped into the TARDIS as the door swung open for him.

The Doctor smiled and laughed with glee as he entered, walking to the controls. The TARDIS hummed loudly in greeting, making sure he knew she missed him. Green light pulsated through the room, and he pulled switches and flicked levers, until they were going through the vortex.

The Doctor decided to do something to make Jack happy, and set the destination to only seconds after he had teleported away. He set the controls on delay however, and entered the wardrobe first, pulling on a familiar pin-striped suit and his tan over-coat. He ran his fingers through his hair, and looked in the mirror satisfied. He grinned at himself before entering the control room again and landing.

He stepped out of the doors, and smiled. “I’m back.”

Jack spun around, and looked at him in shock, before smiling, and rushing over to him and pulling him into a tight hug.

Jack was still reeling over the fact that the Doctor kissed him, again, when the TARDIS appeared behind him, and the Doctor stepped out, a huge grin on his face. Jack hugged him, glad to see him back, not only with the TARDIS, but dressed in his own clothes again. He looked more like himself.

“Did you meet any trouble?”

“Nope,” the Doctor replied, popping the p. “There were a couple guards, but they weren’t paying too much attention. I was able to slip right past them. They must not have thought I would be stupid enough to go for my TARDIS. How wrong they were,” he flashed Jack another smile.

Martha and Mickey ran into the room, panting slightly.

“We heard the TARDIS. What happened?” Martha said quickly, before glancing at the blue box in shock. “You got it back? How?” she then seemed to notice the Doctor again, dressed in his normal clothing. “You’re back!” She smiled widely.

Jack matched her grin, although he wished she hadn’t barged in. He felt bad for feeling that way, but he had wanted to be alone with the Doctor. He noticed that while Martha was hugging the Doctor, the Time Lord looked over her shoulder at Jack. Jack felt his heart beat increase slightly, and he blushed, hoping nobody noticed. The Doctor smiled knowingly at him as Martha released him and he bumped knuckles with Mickey.

“If it’s alright with you two, I’m going to talk to Jack for a moment,” the Doctor said, “and then I will take all of us on an adventure.”

Martha and Mickey both nodded, and the Doctor looked at Jack, motioning to the phone booth.

Martha grinned as she watched the two men enter the time machine, knowing what was happening in there. Or at least what she hoped was happening. Mickey glanced at her, wondering what she was thinking, but she just winked at him.

Around ten minutes after Jack and the Doctor entered the TARDIS, the doors opened again, and a very happy looking Doctor appeared.

“Right…Adventure! Would you like to gather Gwen and Ianto, and we’ll take off?”

Martha noted the flush in his cheeks, the sparkle in his eyes, and the fact that his hair was even more messed up than usual.

“Of course, Doctor,” Martha said with a huge grin, signaling on her communicator for Gwen and Ianto to come right away. She then walked into the TARDIS, loving the feeling of being in the ship again, but also looking at Jack. She noticed he looked much like the Doctor; his hair was messed up, his face was flushed, but with a wide smile. “I’m glad you guys finally had your…talk, and sorted things out,” she said, and laughed as both men blushed.

Just then Gwen and Ianto entered the box, and the Doctor took advantage of the distraction.

“Yes, it’s bigger on the inside, yes, it is amazing, but no, you cannot examine it further. Right then, now that that’s taken care of…Allons-y!” he grinned, pulling a lever. The TARDIS began to shake, and everyone held on tight to anything they could manage to get a grip on. The Doctor and Jack whooped with joy, and the Doctor ran around the controls in a mad dance, flicking the switches, turning the knobs, and doing an awful lot of laughing. Martha couldn’t help but join in with the laughing; it was contagious. All her friends were back together again.

It had been six months since Mars, and the Doctor had been growing bored again, so he stopped off on the planet Hsiodine. He’d heard rumors of the corrupt Raoshta, the government body, and had decided to offer his services. When he arrived, there was a full-fledged war between the Raoshta and the revolutionists, already too far along for him to do anything peacefully, so he decided the only way to end it would be to kill people on both sides as a warning. He entered the fight in Yaolina, and killed every person there without discrimination. Afterwards, when the fighting had successfully ended out of fear of him, he agreed to help both sides collect their dead. He had been walking through the piles, when he caught sight of a familiar frame, and his hearts stopped beating. He ran over to the body, and traced a finger over the familiar face, the blonde hair, and her blue eyes staring lifelessly up at the sky.

“Jenny,” the word had left his lips, and a tear had trailed down his cheek, before he was filled with rage. She had been in the battle. It was the planet’s fault she was dead, and he would kill them all. He made the planet explode, before returning to Messaline, fire burning in his eyes. He wasn’t done yet. The imbeciles allowed her to take off, they hadn’t told him she was alive, they had made him leave her body there, when she was still alive. If he had taken her with him to give her a proper burial, he would still have her. His blood burned with fury, and he had killed every life form on the planet, human and hath.  He reveled most in the death of General Cobb, the man who had shot Jenny in the first place. He listened to the screams of the planet’s inhabitants, loving the feeling of power. He would not hold back anymore. The universe was his, and he didn’t have to be kind.

 


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The TARDIS jolted to a stop, and everyone except the Doctor and Jack fell to the floor. The Doctor landed in the captain’s chair, and Jack was holding onto the metal railing attached to the console.

“Do you call that flying a spaceship?” a voice called out.

“Hey!” the Doctor shouted. “I fly her just fine thank you. She just likes to make things interesting!”

“She?” Ianto asked.

“The ship is sentient,” Jack told him.

“What?”

“She’s alive,” the Doctor grinned, stroking his hand along one of the coral struts, “my oldest companion.” The TARDIS let out a hum of approval, and Ianto’s eyes widened.

The Doctor could tell that Ianto was impressed, and that he was angry that he was.

“Now then, you Torchwood team, you _study_ aliens and alien planets. Are you ready to step out onto one?” the Doctor flashed everyone a wide grin, one he didn’t have to fake. He walked over to the doors, pausing dramatically.

“Where are we?” Martha asked excitedly.

“I don’t know. More fun that way!” the Doctor grinned.

“Is it safe? What if there isn’t an atmosphere?” Ianto asked suspiciously.

The Doctor stuck his head outside the doors. “80 percent oxygen, holding atmosphere, beautiful ecosystem, I’m going out, stay here if you like,” he smiled at them, before stepping out the doors. He was immediately followed by all but Ianto, until the man finally followed the rest out. The Doctor widened his psychic field so he could feel the minds of the people surrounding him. He felt Jack’s admiration, Martha and Mickey’s excitement, Gwen’s amazement, but most of all, he felt awe with a twinge of jealousy from Ianto. It made him laugh.

“It’s beautiful,” Gwen breathed.

And it was. Tall, wide trees stretched high up into the sky, creating a canopy where only a few glimpses of deep blue sky could be seen. In the sky, two suns shined brilliantly, although their beams were not strong enough to pierce most of the leaf coverings. Between the trees and all along the floor of the forest, lush undergrowth was spread, with no discernible path. Birds sang loudly from the treetops, not visible to their eye, and a soft breeze carried their voices between the trees.

The Doctor took an absent-minded appearance, and walked forwards up next to Jack, before grabbing his hand, making it seem as if he had done it without thinking. He felt waves of anger roll off of Ianto as he immediately noticed, and jealousy at the fact Jack didn’t pull away. In fact, Jack looked at the Doctor, and smiled at him, and even Ianto could see the love in the gaze.

“We are on the planet Nirala, in the galaxy of Venarile. I was here once before, but that was a while ago. Last time I saw it, they were being ruled by a dictator, until I stepped in. If I remember correctly, then the village is…” he licked his finger before sticking it in the air, “that way,” he pointed, and pulled on Jack’s hand to follow.

The Doctor felt Ianto’s eyes glaring into the back of his skull as the girls oohed and awed at the scenery.

He smiled, and glanced at Jack, seeing the man’s own smile, and feeling the slight layer of nervous sweat coming from Jack’s hand; something that couldn’t be faked. His grin grew wider.

Martha smiled fondly at Mickey, her hand in his. She loved the feeling of traveling with the Doctor; stepping out onto a new planet, breathing different air…She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. The air here smelled of…peaches. Exotic, alien peaches. She looked up at the sky again, basking in the glow of the double suns. As she looked around the forest, her gaze turned forwards again, and she saw the Doctor glance at Jack nervously, and she noted the fact that they were still holding hands. Although she hadn’t thought it possible, her smile grew wider, and her day just a bit brighter.

Martha heard a noise coming from the side, and she turned quickly, but saw nothing but moving underbrush, swaying gently in a breeze. She shook her head. She was just imagining things. After traveling to with the Doctor to so many planets that were inhabited by people wanting to do them harm, it was difficult not to jump at shadows. The Doctor had said he had freed this planet from a dictator, so things should be peaceful.

The bushes ruffled again, and her training kicked in, causing her to crouch and listen for any slight movement, other than the others talking. Mickey immediately noticed something was wrong, and followed her lead, both Gwen and Ianto following soon after. The Doctor turned around, realizing they had stopped speaking, and paused whatever he had been saying to Jack, who had now pulled out his gun while the Doctor glared at it.

Another rustle and Martha strained her ears. “What is it?” she asked under her breath.

She watched the Doctor’s face as he closed his eyes for a moment, before he broke out in a smile.

“It’s the locals!” he laughed. “It is okay,” he held his hands up. “We are friends.”

Martha looked around, but saw no one, until several shadows peeled themselves away from the trees, all wearing dark cloaks with hoods that seemed to ripple and move like living shadows. She opened her mouth in shock when she saw they were actually surrounded by many people where previously there had been none.

“Doctor?” she heard a shy voice call out.

Martha turned towards it, and saw a young woman with dark skin and blue hair. Her eyes were also the deep blue of the sky, and her full lips were also the shade of blue. Her hood was down and the cloak parted, so Martha could see that she was in a low-cut dress made of black leather, and wore calf high boots of the same material.

“Eya!” the Doctor called out happily, bounding over to her and pulling her into a hug she quickly returned.

“Everybody,” the Doctor turned back towards them, “this is Eyalozadi, she’s my friend from before. It was with her help that I was able to save this planet. Eya, this is Martha and Mickey Smith, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, and Captain Jack Harkness. It’s amazing to see you again,” he smiled at her again.

“Martha? Martha Jones?” Eya asked.

“Smith now,” Martha replied, holding up her ring finger. “You know about me?”

“You were my favorite of the stories the Doctor told me,” she gave her a small smile. “Sorry, Mickey the idiot,” she winked.

“Oi!” he shouted, and Martha giggled.

“What about me?” Jack asked, showing mock offense.

Eya giggled.

Then one of the still-cloaked people shouted something that Martha didn’t understand, and she looked up at the Doctor questioningly, but he just shook his head.

Eya replied in the same manner, and the others unmasked themselves. All had dark skin like Eya, and then brightly colored hair that matched their eyes and lips. There were greens and yellows, pinks and purples, more blues, reds, oranges, and a few colors she had never seen before. The females were dressed much like Eya, and the males were in pants and t-shirts made of the same material, and were also wearing boots.

“It is good to meet you, Doctor,” a man with lime green hair stepped forward. “We have heard much from our Lady.”

“Lady?” the Doctor asked.

Eya blushed, but instead of red, it was also blue. “After you saved us, they needed someone to lead…They figured that since I had helped you, I would be the best choice.”

“Well, no arguments from me! Congratulations!” the Doctor grinned widely, pulling her into another hug.

Martha glanced at Jack, and saw that he had a holding smile, but with slight tenseness underneath. She wondered if he thought the Doctor and the Eya girl had some past romance. It made her wonder too…they seemed awfully close. 

“Let me lead you back to our town. You can see how it has grown!” Eya said happily.

“We’d love to, thanks,” the Doctor smiled, stepping up beside her. “So then, _Lady_ , how have things been since I was last here?”

The Doctor walked alongside Eya, but his mind was elsewhere. He was glad they had landed here and not elsewhere, where he had done more damage. He had come here only a few days after Mars, but this place had been in flux, so he had many options of what he could do. He met Eya when she was only 12, a child, but she had still managed to help him rebel against the dictator, to lead her people in a revolution. She had been amazing even at such a young age. He was proud of her, one of his greatest accomplishments.

He stretched his mind out slightly, and smiled a bit when the first thing he felt was jealousy rolling towards him in waves, from none other than Jack. There was some from Ianto too, but he had grown used to that. Jack’s was overpowering, to the point where he had to partially block it. Martha was amazed, and slightly self-conscious that Eya knew her, Mickey was proud that Eya did, and Gwen was still completely amazed by everything.

The man from before walked up to Eya again and spoke to her in the coded tongue, which he smiled at. The coded language the two of them had made up so the dictator’s spies wouldn’t know of their plans.

“I must walk ahead, with my people, I will see you up at our city,” she smiled at him.

“I know,” he grinned back involuntarily. “I remember.”

She laughed loudly, and ran up ahead into the mix of people.

“Why didn’t the language translate? I thought the TARDIS translated everything,” Martha said, stepping up beside him now that Eya was gone.

“She does. That isn’t technically a language. It’s a code that Eya and I made up,” the Doctor replied.

“You guys made a language together?” Jack asked.

“Isn’t that a bit childish?” Ianto asked, worming his way forwards and into the conversation.

“She was just a kid when we made it. I’m guessing you want to know the story?” he asked, looking around at the groups enthusiastic nods. Even Ianto looked intrigued. “Of course you do. This planet was ruled by a dictator that everyone feared. When I first arrived here, things were terrible, the forest didn’t look like this; everything was darker. I met Eya when she was 12, tossed out on the streets because her parents had been murdered. After a while, I finally got her to open up to me by bringing her food, and talking to her of all my adventures. With her help, we helped the people gain enough spirit and will to defeat the dictator. She looks what, around 25 now? It must be around 13 years since I was last here, I can’t wait to see what they’ve achieved since.”

“So you’re basically like her best friend?” Jack asked. “Nothing more?”

The Doctor laughed. He knew that was what was expected of him when Jack said it. Inside, he also felt pleasure, but more at the fact that he had fooled Jack completely than because Jack sounded so relieved when he said it.

“Don’t worry Jack, I’m more like an older brother or a father than a lover,” he winked, making Jack blush. He walked closer to Jack, slipping his hand into the other man’s again. “Besides,” he said, his voice going slightly lower, “you know I only have eyes for one person,” he leaned in closer to Jack, and lightly brushed his lips against Jack’s. He felt Ianto turn red with anger behind him, but he only saw Jack’s immense happiness, and how he seemed to glow once more. He gauged the group’s reactions, excluding Ianto, and felt how pleased Martha was, amusement from Gwen, and shock from Mickey.

It was so easy to fool these humans; he wondered why he ever thought he would have trouble. His smirk grew unnoticed by all, except to Ianto, who definitely felt something was wrong now, more wrong than the Time Lord stealing Jack from him so easily.

The Doctor wandered down the dark path, trying desperately to find his way. His mind was still on Mars, although it had been a few days since the events. He gave an exasperated sigh and had decided to leave this planet and go to a different one instead, when he heard a soft sniveling sound. He turned in the direction, and saw a small flash of blue.

“Hello?” he said softly.

Watery terrified eyes looked up into his own, and the Doctor felt his hearts break. There was a small, thin girl laying in the gutter. She looked half-dead, and unquestionably starving. He wanted to help this girl, so he dug around in his pocket until he came across the object he was looking for. He held out a bright yellow banana to the girl. She looked at him suspiciously. “It’s food,” he said, but she shrank away at his voice. “I could leave it here and back away,” he offered, and she nodded. He backed away from her as she slowly inched towards the banana, grabbed it, and then practically sprinted back to her spot on the side walk. “You peel it open,” he mimed opening a banana, and he watched with a smile on his face as she closed her eyes and savored the taste of the food. He wondered how long it had been since she had last eaten.

For the next week, he brought her food, leaving it near her, before backing up so she could get it. Although she hadn’t said a word to him yet, he told her of his many adventures, and all the friends he made along the way.

On this day, he sat down again, but this time instead of backing away from the food, he left the meal sitting right next to him on the sidewalk, and started talking again. This time, he told her about being the last of his kind, the destruction of his planet. He pretended not to notice when she crept up next to him silently.

She sat next to him, and chewed thoughtfully for a moment, before saying one word that made his day, and all the other days he sat there, worth it. “Sorry,” she muttered, finishing the last of her food and then moving away again.

Within another week, she never moved away from him again, and spoke to him a bit more. By the next, she was talking to him more than he originally thought possible, asking him questions about all kinds of things. Within just a bit later, she told him about her life, her name, and what she knew of the planet. It was then that he convinced her to help him save it.

He looked down at this young girl, who had come farther than he ever thought she would, from a kid wasting away in an alley, to this energetic girl who talked a thousand words a minute and ate more than he thought was physically possible. They often joked that just like his pockets, her stomach was bigger on the inside. She was like a daughter to him, and while it hurt to feel that way again, it also felt strangely good. He felt immeasurable joy at seeing her grow, and especially when she picked up a few of his own traits. He couldn’t wait to save her planet so that he could take her away into the stars with him, and show her the universe.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

After around ten minutes of walking, Eya bounded back towards the group of travelers.

“We’re almost there, are you ready for this?” she asked with a grin.

The Doctor looked at her, trying to get an image off the surface of her mind, but she looked at him.

“No cheating,” she wagged a finger at him mockingly. He almost regretted teaching her how to build unbreakable walls around her mind and how to feel if someone came into contact with them…almost. He loved that she had listened to him well enough to still be able to do it perfectly now, after all these years.

Ianto looked at her curiously. “How could he cheat?”

She looked at him with a little bit of surprise. “He’s telepathic,” she said, with a tone of disbelief. She thought it was obvious.

“I know, but—”

“It’s stronger than you think,” the Doctor cut him off, with a tight, humorless smile, “a gift of the Time Lords.” The Doctor didn’t want him to know the extent of his mental powers. If he knew, he could begin to piece together the Doctor’s deception, and he could not – would not – allow that to happen.

Eya looked back and forth between the two men, not quite sure what to think, but shook off the feeling with another smile, this one a bit more forced but not by much. “Anyways, it is just through there,” she pointed at a wall of trees.

“How do we get through?” Gwen asked curiously, missing the slight tension in the air.

Eya just winked at her, and bounded towards the base of the wide-trunked trees that seemed to stretch up into the sky forever. In this part of the forest, the leafy covering was so far off it looked more like a solid line of green than individual leaves. It almost looked like a green sky. The Doctor could tell that his companions loved it.

The Doctor grabbed Jack’s hand a little tighter, and pulled him after Eya, the rest of the group following quickly after.

They stopped at the base of the lines, and Eya called out a string of the coded language that the Doctor recognized as her revealing who she was, and a request to be let in. He waited patiently to see what would happen as the rest of Eya’s people circled around them.

It started with a slow creaking noise, and the Doctor’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. He had been able to see that the trunks had been extremely wide; some reaching almost a hundred feet, but this was incredible. A portion of the trunk slid upwards, and the humans beside him all gasped as they saw the beauty of the hollowed out tree. The village wasn’t protected by the trees; it _was_ the trees. As they all stepped inside, the Doctor looked up and saw a long, curving staircase that ran up along the wall and up to the very top of the tree. There were several breaks in the steps for doors, probably leading into other trees, and there were several half-platforms at places further up in the tree. Where they were now, in the very bottom, the inside of the trunk had been painted with reds and blues, and globes expelling light were hung all around them. The combined effect of the lights and the paint made the area shine with color, and Eya grinned at their reactions.

“Do you like it?” Eya asked, her tone already saying that she knew what their answers were.

The humans all nodded, completely breath taken and unable to speak, but the Doctor looked at Eya.

“It is amazing. I’m so proud of you.”

Eya beamed at his compliment, and she pulled him by the hand to the base of the stairs.

“It’s better from the top, just wait until you see! Come on!” she said excitedly, and the Doctor was reminded of the excitement she always had when she was just a kid. “And we can lend you a tree house of your own; somewhere you all can stay for a while!”

“I don’t know how long we’ll be here for Eya, it certainly won’t be longer than a few days,” the Doctor said slowly, trying to choose his words carefully.

Her face fell slightly, but she quickly recomposed it, and continued telling them all they had achieved in the years since the revolution. Normally, a flight of stairs as large as the one they were climbing would be tiring, but at each new level was a completely different looking room, all decorated with different colors. They were too interested to feel tired at all.

When they finally reached the top levels of tree, so that they were only around twenty feet from the leaves, the stairs stopped at a closed door.

“I hope none of you are afraid of heights,” Eya grinned devilishly, before stepping through the door.

Even with all that he had seen, all that he had done, the Doctor’s breath still caught in his throat as he looked around. They were now standing on a wooden bridge leading to a central tree, larger than any he had ever seen before, and that was something. All the other trees that had made up the wall had actually been in a circle, and all of them had similar bridges connected to the huge platform extending around the central tree. There were people everywhere, going about their everyday lives. The center tree had several more platforms extending around the outside of it at different levels as well, staircases wrapping around the outside of the trunk, all also filled with people, laughing and smiling. On the ground, although the Doctor could barely see that far down, he could tell that there were children milling around, and what seemed to be a playground. The only word to describe the scene was beautiful. All of the humans were dumbstruck at the sight, even Jack although he had been a Time Agent and had also seen a lot.

Eya laughed at all of their reactions, proud that she was partially responsible for the city extending around them. She looked up at the sky and saw it was beginning to darken, so she stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out a loud, shrill whistle that rang around the village. Almost at once, the same globes that had been casting light on the inside of the trees lit up outside, only slightly brighter and all slightly blue tinted.

“It’s late,” she said, turning to her guests as her people started to shuffle into their own homes. “Let me show you to someplace you can sleep.” She started walking towards the center, when she stopped and let out a small, excited, “Oh!” She laughed, and tugged on the Doctor again. “You guys can stay on one of the floors of my home! We have quite a few extra floors of just beds, for when we have long parties. You can stay on the floor directly below mine! It’s usually where the guards stay, but I think the Doctor is guard enough,” she winked.

The group followed her into the tree, and down a few levels. On the way, they passed a couple doors, and she explained what was behind them. The top floor, that could be walked into directly from outside, was a marketplace, the floor below was a meeting room for Eya and her advisors, below that a dining room with a wall separating it from the kitchen…They were a few floors down from the kitchen when she motioned to the door of her own room, and then continued to the floor below where they would all sleep.

The room she walked into wasn’t ornately decorated, but it was still beautiful, the walls a shade of deep purple, lit up by more of the softly glowing globes. There were several beds throughout the room, all with wooden frames and soft-looking white sheets with dark purple comforters.

“You guys can sleep in any that you like,” she smiled kindly at them, and all the humans felt the exhaustion of all the exercise slowly catch up with them, and complied quickly. “Doctor, if you’re not too sleepy, which I know you probably aren’t, do you want to come to my room so we can catch up some more?”

“Of course,” he smiled at her. “All of you behave yourselves! Don’t insult anybody, don’t do anything stupid, and don’t wander off. Sleep tight!” He turned and followed Eya up the steps, Jack’s eyes watching him the entire time.

While speaking to Eya, the Doctor made sure to avoid all the stories of times when he had been unrelenting in his punishments. He knew exactly what she wanted to hear, so told her stories of where he had come out as a dashing hero, much like he had with her.

“So you’re still just wandering then?” she asked him, her voice full of slight sadness.

Before he answered, he felt a presence right outside the open door, a presence he easily recognized as Jack. He gave a slightly faked, small, sad smile at Eya, and replied, “That is what I do. I wander around, and when I find those in trouble, I help.”

“You never stay anywhere,” she said.

“I don’t have anywhere _to_ stay. In the end, it is always just me and the TARDIS,” he replied, taking extra care to make the sentence seem sad.

“You could stay here,” she said softly.

He looked at her warm, blue eyes, and gave her another sad smile. “I can’t.”

“Is there something holding you back?” she asked him.

He shook his head slowly, looking down again.

“Is it some _one_?” she asked him, catching on.

He looked up at her as though he wanted to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.

“We could switch to our code if you’re worried anyone is listening,” she said, and the Doctor felt Jack stiffen at her words, thinking he had been found out. “I haven’t taught that much to the guards, just enough so that we can communicate around possible hostiles.”

The Doctor gave the appearance of thinking it over, and secretly contacted the TARDIS, pushing his knowledge of the code to the TARDIS, and making sure she would send it to Jack so he would still be able to follow the conversation. He wanted Jack to hear this. It is what would convince him completely that he actually had feelings for him. He nodded at Eya, and opened his mouth to speak.

Jack felt a presence pushing towards his mind, but he immediately recognized the TARDIS, and allowed her in. He found that when he heard the Doctor speak again, presumably in the code, it came out as English for him. He smiled. The TARDIS wanted him to hear what the Doctor was saying, which meant it was something important. He risked a peek around the corner again, and saw the Doctor’s face in a sad expression, lit up by the glowing balls.

“It’s not easy for me to talk about things,” he said, and Jack watched as Eya rested a hand over his.

“You can talk to me. You know that.”

He looked up at her again, before looking at the floor and speaking. “It is someone, but they won’t return the feelings. I know they won’t.”

“Who?” she asked softly, and Jack strained his ears to hear the Doctor’s whispered reply.

“Jack.”

Jack’s heart leapt into his throat at his name. He thought it was possible the Doctor returned his feelings, especially with the entire hand holding, and the small kisses, but hearing him say it to somebody else was completely different.

“The guy from earlier?” Jack almost missed her response.

“Yeah…”

“He was kind of cute,” she joked, trying to lighten the mood, and she was rewarded with a small laugh from the Doctor. She then got serious again. “The way he was looking at you though…I don’t think you have to worry.”

“He’s from the 51st century…That’s the way he looks at everyone. I’m nothing special. There is no reason that he would choose me over anyone.”

Jack wanted to burst in right there and tell him just how wrong he was, but he knew if he did that then he would be caught eavesdropping.

“Doctor, you _are_ special. You do more for people than they usually ever know, and ask for nothing in return. You are a _hero_. I can’t think of a single person that he would choose over you.”

The Doctor didn’t reply, and Jack saw he was looking down at his hands, picking at the bottom of his suit.

“Doctor, did something happen that you didn’t tell me about?” she asked softly.

The Doctor seemed conflicted about talking about it to her, before speaking again.

“I was drifting in the TARDIS, and she picked up signs of a battle below, so I landed to see if I could help. The occupants of Grotsnee, the planet, were fighting against a warden of one of the largest prisons in the galaxy. The warden had gone corrupt, and the Grotsnees were well known for their treasure hoards. With all of the guards from the prison, he didn’t have a problem in disposing of them and taking their treasures. When I stepped in to help…he realized I was a far greater treasure, and set his sights on imprisoning me so that he could steal my secrets and my TARDIS. I…” his voice broke off slightly, and Eya moved next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “I have been imprisoned before, and I couldn’t go through it again. I fought, and…I killed.” He buried his head into her shoulder, and Jack could see from the way he was shaking that he was crying. “I killed so many of them, and I couldn’t stop myself. I murdered them, and they still imprisoned me. I took lives for nothing. All those people, all the things they could have achieved…Just gone in one instant…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered to him, rocking him back and forth slowly to try and make him feel better. “You were only defending yourself. They might be gone, but the world might be a bit of a better place, because if they were trying to imprison you, then they weren’t very good men.”

It was quiet for a while after that, and Jack wished it was him in that room, his arms wrapped around the Doctor, his voice soothing him. He had thought it was bad before, when he had just known about the torture, but this on top of that? He had already loved the older man, but now, he loved the Time Lord more than he thought possible. After going through everything he went through, he still was completely conflicted about the deaths of evil men. Jack wouldn’t have even batted an eye at killing them, but the Doctor did, and that was one of the great things about him.

As the silence continued, he thought the talking was done and was about to return downstairs, when Eya’s voice sounded again. “How long were you there? What did they do to you?”

It took the Doctor slightly longer to reply. “I was there for six months, until Jack saved me. They…They tortured me. They probably would have continued if Jack hadn’t come when he did.”

“Jack rescued you? The same Jack that you brought with you?”

Jack watched as the Time Lord nodded.

He dreaded the answer to the next question she asked. “Do you think your feelings for him are just because he saved you?”

The silence seemed to stretch on forever as Jack strained his hearing, holding his breath.

“No.” Jack breathed again, small black spots behind his eyes as the Doctor denied his worst fear. “I felt for him before, but I didn’t say anything or act on it. I couldn’t. It isn’t easy for me to be…intimate with others. I’ve already lost so much; I don’t think I would be able to handle it if I lost him too. I don’t want to start anything with him, only for him to realize it isn’t what he wants. And I wouldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want me either.”

Tears pricked behind Jack’s eyes as he heard the Doctor’s words, all the emotions he always kept so perfectly behind his smile.

“I…I love him though, even if he doesn’t share the feeling.” The Doctor continued.

The Doctor loved him…Jack bit the insides of his cheeks to keep from whooping, and quietly returned downstairs with the new information swirling around in his head.

Jack climbed back into one of the empty beds, and pretended to be asleep when he heard the Doctor’s soft footsteps a few minutes later. He made sure to keep his breathing slow and steady as he heard the steps stop by the foot of his bed, but he could do nothing about his heart, which was pounding in his chest. The footsteps moved directly next to him, and he had to focus all his energy on keeping his face still as the air above his cheek tingled, and he recognized the fact that the Doctor's hand was a few centimeters from his face. If Jack moved even just a tiny bit, they'd be touching. He prepared himself to “roll” into it, when it was removed and the steps led to the bed next to his, and he heard the Doctor lay down to sleep with a soft sigh.

 

 


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

When Jack opened his eyes in the morning, the first thing he noticed was a pair of cool arms wrapped around his body. Then he felt an equally cool head pressed against the back of his chest. He laid there for a moment, before his mind finally registered the fact that he wasn’t alone in his bed anymore. He turned and looked over his shoulder, and his jaw dropped at the sight of a familiar Time Lord, his brown hair more tousled than usual, and his eyes shut tightly. The Doctor was in his bed.

It took him another few minutes before he could even think again, and he gently pulled himself away, watching the Doctor’s face. He couldn’t help but notice how innocent and childlike he looked when he was asleep. The second Jack was no longer touching him, the Time Lord started fussing in his sleep, and opened his eyes.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” Jack smiled at him.

The Doctor froze, seeming to notice he was no longer in his own bed. “Sorry,” he said immediately, practically shooting out of the bed.

Jack looked at the Doctor, his eyes still slightly unfocused with sleep, and then around the room at all their friends, still asleep. “Why were you in my bed?” Jack asked. “Not that I’m complaining.”

The Doctor blushed, and Jack couldn’t help but think how adorable he looked.

“I think I sleep walked…I can’t sleep without a constant sound…it’s usually the TARDIS…she…she hums to me…” The Doctor’s face turned redder.

“So you climbed in bed with me to listen to my heart beat?” Jack asked. He didn’t think it was possible for the Doctor to turn any redder, but he did.

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again and replied with a nod instead.

Jack laughed again, and was about to reply when a young girl entered the room.

“I apologize for disturbing you, but my Lady requests all of your presences in her dining room,” she said, her head bowed. She seemed around nine or ten years old. The color that accented her was a warm yellow, her hair pulled into low pigtails with light blue ribbons. She was dressed in a lighter yellow gown made of a cloth-like material that reached the floor and a blue sash around her waist. “Clothes have been provided for you while you slept…” she motioned to a chest nearby.

“We’ll be right up,” the Doctor said, grabbing at the distraction.

The girl leaned forwards slightly in a bow, before leaving the room and returning up stairs.

“Well then! A feast in our honor!” Jack smiled.

“MY honor Jack,” the Doctor corrected him, “and it’s breakfast, not a feast.”

“Details,” he waved it off with a smile.

The Doctor just shook his head and began to awaken their friends.

The Doctor smirked. Last night had worked better than he had hoped, especially judging by Jack’s thoughts from earlier. The Doctor thanked the fact that his biology allowed him to control the blood-flow in his body to make it seem as if he were blushing. He looked at himself in the reflection of the mirror in the bathroom he was standing in.

Outside the door, the Torchwood team was getting dressed.  Eya’s people had provided cloth clothing similar to that of the girl that had come in earlier. There were blue cloth dresses for Gwen and Martha, and for the boys, light blue shirts made of the same material as the dresses, and pants made of the same leather-like material as the guards from earlier had worn. For him, Eya, being the person that she was, had managed to save one of his blue suits from his last visit in case he planned to visit again. Almost 15 years since he had worn it last, for her, and she had preserved it perfectly.

He looked in the mirror again, and saw the steeled glint had returned to his eyes, and he worked on softening them once more. It wouldn’t do for them to see the difference in his eyes and see he was no longer the same man that said goodbye to them two years ago. He was even different from the person Eya met. Things might have turned out differently if Eya had agreed to come with him, but she had said no. She had chosen people who had walked past her in that alley for _years_ without pausing to help her. She had chosen people that didn’t bat an eye when she had been injured in the fight. His mind flashed back…

_“You won’t get away with this! We **will** stop you,” the Doctor yelled._

_“I’d like to see you try,” the man sneered, his fiery red hair falling across his face._

_“Oh you’ll see me alright,” he growled in return, elbowing the guard holding him in the side so that he leaned over, before kneeing him in the gut and swiping his legs from under him. He punched the other guard in the face, and while he was holding his nose, the Doctor grabbed the sword and pointed it at the dictator._

_“Oh, no! You’ve got me!” he sneered in a mocking tone, holding his arms up. “Kill her.”_

_“NO!” the Doctor screamed._

_Things moved in slow motion and all the sounds disappeared as his head whipped to the side, where Eya was being held between two guards. Her fearful eyes met his, and they widened slightly as a sword was driven into her stomach. The guards released her, and she stood there for a moment, her hands fluttering to the wound, before she fell to the floor._

_It was at that moment, as the Doctor ran to her side, that the other rebels decided to burst into the room, overpowering the dictator’s men almost immediately. They had been late. They didn’t follow the plan and come when he gave the signal._

_He ran to Eya’s side, pressing his hand against the flow of blood, trying to stop the bleeding. All around him rebels moved around the room, disarming guards, placing them in chains, marching them out. He screamed for help, but not a single one even spared him a glance._

_He laid her on the floor, ripping open the bottom of her shirt, seeing the damage. He pulled out his sonic, healing as much as he could the best that he could. He couldn’t save her here; he needed the TARDIS, her medbay…_

_The groaning sound filled the room, men cowered in fear, the doors swung open, he carried her through the TARDIS, she shifted her halls for him, bringing the door forwards, opening it as he neared, rolling a bed towards him, materializing medical tools. She knew exactly what he needed, but it wasn’t enough, there was too much damage… A presence touched his mind, a singing filling his entire being. The TARDIS moved his hand for him, making him do what he wasn’t able to himself, mending Eya as tears fell from his eyes. Some of the last real tears he would ever cry._

He braced himself against the sink, pushing away the memories.

“Doc?” a hand fell on his shoulder.

He had to force himself from reacting, stop himself from bringing the possible assaulter into a chokehold. He had been too caught up in the past; he hadn’t felt Jack enter the room. “I’m fine,” he muttered, pulling himself away from the immortal man. Acting pained was one thing, but nobody was allowed to see him like this.

Instead of leaving like the Doctor wanted him to, Jack walked further into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

“What is it?” Jack asked, his voice full of sincerity and kindness.

The Doctor scowled, not wanting to deal with him right now, before deciding to at least use the moment to his advantage. He changed his expression to one of grief, forcing tears from his eyes and a slight flush to appear in his cheeks. He worked on it for a moment, until it was believable, before turning around to face Jack.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want anyone to see me like this,” he said, making his voice waver as if filled with emotion.

Jack immediately wrapped his arms around the older man, pulling him tight.

“It’s okay,” he said, repeating the words over and over again as he brought the Doctor down towards the floor with him. He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes as Jack pulled him into his lap and started rubbing his back as he tried to sooth him. The Doctor played the part, gasping for breath, grabbing handfuls of Jack’s shirt, burying his head in Jack’s shoulder…It sickened him to act so weak. If he didn’t have a future cause for the man, he would have locked him in the TARDIS’s torture chamber by now. Oh the fun he would have with the immortal man…He could rip him to shreds, cut him to pieces, burn him alive, and he would come back to life so that he could start again. With that image in mind, he gleefully played his part. The second the warden was out of his way, he would do as he pleased with the immortal man. Who knew, maybe he would trap Ianto down there too, make him feel the pain of knowing he was right yet Jack was too much of a lovesick puppy to listen. Make him watch as he repeatedly killed Jack, yet also see how he still loved the Doctor over him, believing there was good in him still…Oh he could already see it. He licked his lips in anticipation.

Jack seemed to take his excitement over the future as a sign that whatever had been bothering him had stopped, because he stopped speaking, and pulled the Doctor back to look at him. The Doctor made sure his face looked innocent again the moment Jack looked at him.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Jack asked softly.

Not feeling like making up a story at the moment, the Doctor shook his head no, making his eyes shine again with unshed tears.

Jack sighed and hugged him again, and the Doctor felt him trying to push feelings of love and hope into his mind. He quickly fortified all the dark corners of his mind, hiding them in even darker places, and brought forth a room he had made earlier just in case, built from the components that had previously made him, the kindness and joy, and then allowed Jack into that section, all within a split section so Jack didn’t notice anything wrong.

 _“Thank you,”_ he whispered in Jack’s mind, tainting the words with enough false love to fool Jack. Sure enough, he felt Jack’s happiness levels rise. The Doctor shielded his mind fully once more, banishing the room to the furthest reaches of his mind until he needed it again.

He looked into Jack’s eyes and could see the many conflicting emotions swirling around in their depths, until he finally made up his mind with a tiny, unnoticeable, mental nudge from the Doctor.

Jack picked the Time Lord back up off the floor, and the Doctor gave him a look of fake confusion, before Jack had him shoved against the wall. Jack hesitated a moment, his hands on either side of the Doctor’s face, his body pressed against the Doctor’s. The Doctor turned the look of confusion into one of shock, dropping his jaw slightly, and that was all it took before Jack shoved his lips against the Doctor’s, taking advantage of the fact that the Doctor’s mouth was already open by plunging his tongue inside. The Doctor waited just long enough for it to seem like he was coming out of confusion, before returning the kiss. Jack’s hands moved up to the Doctor’s head, and fingers ran through his hair, something the Doctor knew Jack had wanted to do since he first saw this regeneration. The Doctor let it happen. He knew this was what it would take for Jack to trust him enough to help him attack and kill the warden, no matter how repulsing this act was. Having one so obviously…wrong…so near to him…He had to force himself not to shudder as Jack continued to ravage his mouth. It was a necessary sacrifice to bring the immortal completely under his control, and he made sure to do it right, pulling Jack closer to him, making the occasional moan of pleasure, until Jack finally pulled away, a huge grin on his face.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Jack laughed.

The Doctor returned Jack’s smile with a real one, because just before they had separated, the Doctor had felt a pair of snooping eyes, belonging to none other than Ianto. Not only had Teaboy witnessed their kiss, he would have been able to see that it was Jack who initiated it, Jack who was pushing him against the wall, Jack holding their bodies together.

If every day got better as quickly as this one did, he would have the warden’s head on a platter in no time at all.

“Come on,” Jack’s voice startled him from his thoughts. “Eya called for us a while ago, she’s probably missing us right now.”

The Doctor nodded, taking on once more the innocent and buzzing with happiness appearance, as he allowed Jack to lead him into the bedroom and up the stairs.

The plan was coming together so nicely.

 

 


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The Doctor smiled and laughed and made sure to ramble on a lot during the breakfast, and he made sure it was convincing. None of his friends noticed anything different about him yet, and they wouldn’t until the time was right. He was glad when the meal was finally over; he’d had enough of Eya’s people…The same ones that stole her from him. He glowered at the crowd leaving the massive room, leaving just Eya, himself, and the Torchwood members in the huge dining hall.

“That was amazing,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair with his arms over his head, groaning as his full stomach stretched.

Martha giggled at his act, twining her hand with Mickey’s again.

The Doctor gave her a huge grin, and turned towards the immortal man sitting next to him, his shirt rising slightly with his stretching motion, revealing the bottom of his stomach. The Doctor poked his belly, and laughed. “I don’t think you could have fit any more food in your stomach! You ate over half the table! I’m surprised you don’t explode!”

Jack let out a mock cry, rubbing the sore spot, before grinning at the group. “At least if I had, then my body would have regrown itself and I would have room for more!”

The Doctor shook his head with a small smile.

“Regrow? Humans can regrow their bodies?” Eya asked curiously.

“I wish,” Martha laughed.

“I’m special,” Jack flashed his signature smile at her. “I’m the only one of me out there, and I can’t die.”

Eya’s eyes flashed with recognition, and she let out a little, “oh!” She laughed then, shaking her head. “Of course! I don’t know how I could have forgotten! The Bad Wolf! You’re _that_ Jack! I guess I should probably just assume that all the Jacks in the Doctor’s stories are you!”

“Why? Does he talk about me a lot?” Jack said in a joking tone, but the Doctor made sure to make it seem as if he was blushing, a red cloud forming in his cheeks. He made it hold for a moment before letting it fade away, as if he hadn’t wanted anyone to see, but he knew Jack had. Jack flashed him a cheeky grin, his happiness clearly splayed across his features.

The Doctor inwardly sighed, frustrated with all of this playing. He had to stop himself from allowing the malice to spread across his features. He focused instead on what he was going to do once the warden was dead and the prison destroyed, closing his eyes. The torture room came into his mind, and he rejoiced in the screams of fear and pain that he would hear in the future. His eyes immediately popped open when he remembered…his special room had an occupant…He had been away so long he had forgotten. A smile flashed across his features before he could stop it, dark and cold, the way it should be. The dark brown eyes flashed across the occupants of the table, and he found none of his friends were looking at him, none had seen the darkness, and he felt relieved that he had gotten away with it, until he locked eyes with Ianto. He saw the anger and accusation in the young man’s eyes, and knew he had seen and was beginning to suspect, so he did something childish. He stuck his tongue out at him, smiling a bit as he felt more looks turn his way, specifically Jack’s.

“Scold me for eating everything, and then you do something utterly childish like sticking your tongue out,” the immortal man said, shaking his head.

The Doctor gave him a look of completely over exaggerated innocence, before he broke it with a huge grin. “You caught me,” he said, filling the tone of his voice with humor.

They were interrupted by a small cough from Eya. “Are you boys going to flirt all day, or are you going to let me play a good host and entertain you guys?”

The Doctor forced himself to blush again, and this time he was mirrored by Jack.

“I have to work on the TARDIS, make a few repairs, but you could play the gracious host to my friends,” the Doctor smiled kindly at Eya.

“I’ll help you,” Jack said, looking at the Doctor with love in his eyes.

The Doctor had to stop himself from gagging. “No, no. It’s dusty old work. Besides, she doesn’t like it when other people mess with her, and you should have fun with your team. I’ll be back later,” he said, giving another smile and a small wave.

He left quickly, glad to _finally_ be away from the idiots. The moment he was away from the town, away from prying eyes, he finally let the act drop, his eyes returning to their darkened glare, the fake smile falling away into a much colder one, filled with anticipation for what he was about to do. He reached the TARDIS, and he felt real joy, and he rushed through the halls to that one room that always made his day.

Jack enjoyed the time spent in the village with his team, but he couldn’t help but feel worried about the Doctor. He had been acting slightly strange earlier, and he almost seemed repelled at the idea of Jack helping him with the TARDIS. He thought back to their heated kiss from earlier in the morning, and he wondered if he had pushed too far too soon. The Time Lord had just been saved from a prison where he had been tortured physically and mentally…The Doctor didn’t need Jack bothering him while he was still recovering.

He felt a presence next to him, and he plastered a smile on his face and turned to see Eya, her eyes filled with kindness.

“He does like you, you know,” she said, moving to stand next to him, overlooking the canopy of leaves.

Jack nodded, allowing the fake expression to drop.

She stayed silent a moment, before speaking again. “He’s the Doctor. He doesn’t quite understand relationships…He’s scared he’s going to lose you, just like he always loses everyone,” she said quietly.

“Did he lose you?” Jack asked her, wanting to find out more about her and why the Doctor trusted her more than anyone.

“I never went with him. He offered of course, he was so excited, so many places he wanted to take me…” she trailed off, her mind in a different place. “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. He saved my life, brought me back from the edge of death, and he shared so much with me. I think it was a relief for him, to be able to share with someone; someone who wouldn’t reply, because I couldn’t at first. He’s so great, but he thinks he doesn’t need anyone when clearly he does. I was going to go with him, I had made up my mind the moment he saved me, but then…I was injured, really badly, and he didn’t take it well at all. When I finally awoke, he looked terrible, Jack. He hadn’t slept, and while for him that usually isn’t a problem, it was then. He was skinny, skinnier than usually although that hadn’t seemed possible. I don’t think he left my side once in at least a few weeks,” she looked into Jack’s eyes then, as if she was trying to push the scarring image into his mind so he could see just how terrible it had been. “I knew if I went with him, and something happened to me again, it would have torn him apart. I don’t think he knows, but I gave up travelling with him, I gave up the universe, so he wouldn’t have to go through the pain of losing me eventually.” She swallowed then, with great difficulty, those brilliant blue eyes beginning to mist over. “But that won’t happen with you. You’re immortal! Even if you are severely injured, you will get better and he’ll still have you. Even if he can’t say it to you, he loves you, I know he does. He’s worried though; scared if he actually accepts it, then something will happen that will take you from him. He needs you, Jack.”

Jack couldn’t reply for a moment, his throat constricting, until he finally forced out the words, “I need him too.”

A ghost of a smile appeared on Eya’s lips, and they stared out over the trees together in silence. A good silence this time.

A few months after Hsiodine and the events that happened there, the Doctor was on the planet Boshund. He had seen the corruptness there, and decided to take complete control. None of the people there were worthy of a position of power.

Instead, _he_ sat on their throne, with the decision to stay for a while and for once enjoy the fruits of his labor in making the universe better. He never stopped, never watched the results, so this time he would. He sat on the golden chair, raised above all, watching the people below, none daring look up at him. They were dirty and disgusting, but he still watched over them, for their own sakes.

It had been a day much like all the others, the peasants going about their work, all with their heads bowed, not a single whispered word. They were all scared of him, much as it should be.

He motioned with his hand for the servant girl to step forward with his drink, and was faced with a man instead, his eyes staring into the floor.

“Where’s the girl?” the Doctor demanded.

“She fell sick, I am taking her place for today,” the man replied. The Doctor noticed a difference about him; his voice didn’t shake when he spoke, he wasn’t frightened. It made him reexamine the man, and as he looked into the man’s mind, he saw the plan inside; to poison him and save his people, how sweet. He found what kind of poison it was, and smiled inwardly. It wasn’t one that was lethal to Time Lords.

“Fine,” he growled, taking the drink. He noticed how the man’s eyes followed his motions. He grinned behind the cup, downing it in a sip. He felt the poison work its way through his body, trying to take hold but finding no purchase. The man watched him carefully, and the Doctor decided to milk a reaction out of him. He started coughing violently, gripping at his throat, before glaring at the man. “You poisoned me!” He gasped out, as if he was struggling to breathe.

The man smiled, no longer acting subservient. “Of course I did. Now we can finally be free,” his eyes met the Doctor’s all filled with fury and passion.

The Doctor pretended to die, slowing his hearts and switching to his respiratory bypass system. He was curious now; he wanted to see the rest of this man’s plan. He wanted him to inspire hope in the people so that he could wrench it away and show them that in the future, any attempts on his life would be futile. He watched through his eyelashes as the man stepped to the edge of the platform.

“People of Boshund,” he called out loudly, “you are free now! I have killed the man that has ruled over us for so long!”

The Doctor heard murmurs from below, and looked carefully at the people below, pointing at him.

“Yes, he is dead! For good! You are freed! We all are!” The man called out the short phrases, making sure to enunciate every word. It came out choppy, as if it was unplanned, as if he hadn’t thought he would survive long enough to bring about his plan to entirety. It wasn’t as inspiring as he had hoped it would be, but it got the message out. The peasants stopped their work and gathered around the platform, a few cheers rising, and many more murmurs spreading throughout the crowd.

The Doctor waited a few more minutes, until the crowd grew substantially larger, all speaking of his death, before acting.

“It’s enlightening to know how my people act at the thought of my death,” the Doctor said, rising from the chair. The man spun around with a gasp, and the crowd was full of shocked faces, “all cheers and smiles. No sad faces, no sobs or screams or crying. Well, I’ll have to fix that.”

From above, he spread his mental awareness and felt those who were the most crestfallen over the fact that he was still alive, and found the top 5. He entered their minds, and sent them all the pain equivalent of being stabbed by 50 red-hot pokers. All of them screamed and fell to the ground, causing panic in the crowd as nobody had seen anything physically happen to them. The Doctor watched in silence as they sobbed and tore at their own flesh, ripping at their skin and tearing holes in their body. He didn’t realize how much fun this could be. He entered all the minds of the crowd and inflicted a different form of torture on each, and although it only happened in their mind, it was enough to kill some outright, while others tore at themselves causing the wounds that would lead to their own eventual death.

A smile tore across his cold face, seeming out of place. To another person, this cold, cruel smile didn’t seem to fit this face; to anyone who had met the Doctor previously, this man standing over the people crying in agony would have been unrecognizable.

In his own moment of pleasure, the Doctor temporarily forgot about the man on the platform, who a moment ago had been on his knees sobbing, muttering over and over again that it was all his fault. Now, the man stood, and began to throw himself at the Doctor, but was stopped by a hard fist hitting his face. His body slumped back to the ground, all fight gone.

“What is your name?” the Doctor demanded. The man groaned but didn’t reply, so the Doctor pressed his foot against the man’s back, digging into the soft flesh of his upper shoulder and neck. He repeated the question.

“Aaron,” the man groaned out, his tone defeated.

The Doctor smiled again, a new idea forming in his mind. He found it was enjoyable to inflict pain on others. He would keep Aaron just for that purpose. An attempt on his life would not go unpunished.

The Doctor found creative ways to kill the rest of the planet’s occupants before returning to the TARDIS, Aaron in tow, chains around his ankles and wrists, connected to a single string in the Doctor’s hand.

The TARDIS let out an angry hum as her Time Lord entered, disgusted with what he had become. Her lights grew dimmer, and she shook the room, her hums becoming violent, causing Aaron to cower in fear.

The Doctor wasn’t stupid; he knew the TARDIS was powerful, and he knew that she could be his downfall if she chose to be. Or he could do something clever. A smile appeared on his face as he realized what was now in his power to do. He had a bond with the TARDIS, one that went two ways. He zoned out the shaking and the noise in the background, and focused on the line connecting him to her, and followed it into the TARDIS herself. He could feel her feelings of love for him, and how upset she was at his changes. He drove his way through her, and removed all the new negative thoughts of him, and replaced them with admiration. He replaced her pain over his cruelty and replaced them with approval. He changed the very core of the TARDIS so that she would do anything he asked as a loyal servant, the way it should have been. He then made a new room, for Aaron. A room that would become his favorite and the favorite of the TARDIS’s to watch him in. He made a torture chamber. Realizing that he could disappear from the TARDIS for days on end, he set the time flow in the room to be different, so when he was not inside, it ran at one hour for every day that passed. It ran normally when he was inside of course, but he couldn’t have his prisoner dying if he decided to step out for a conquest or two. A manic smile crossed his face as he set off once more.

 

 


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The Doctor entered the torture room, his happiness in a cloud around him. "Did you miss me?" He asked, mock concern in his tone.

A man was chained in the center of the room, the light brown of his skin and the blood painting it the only color beside the gray of the stone walls and floor and the nondescript clothing he wore. The chains were secured to the ceiling, forcing the man into a kneeling position with his arms hanging above him. A wild look was in his piercing blue eyes as he glared up at the Doctor, a dark patchy beard tracing the way down his solid jaw. The months of torture hadn't made him more pitiful as the Doctor had expected, it had actually done the opposite. He had gained spirit. He spat at the Doctor in response.

The Doctor's grin grew wider. He liked it when the slave was in a fierce mood. It made the sessions more entertaining.

"What shall we try today?" the Doctor continued his one-sided conversation. "Hot pokers again? Bring back the memories of the people you were trying to save dying because of your actions? Or something new...I did get a new set of blades recently, and I have yet to try them out..." he trailed off as if he was thoughtful.

"Rot in hell," Aaron said, so quiet the Doctor almost missed it, but not quite.

The Doctor let out a laugh that sounded a bit more like a chortle, before grabbing a spiked bat off of the wall, and coming to stand next to Aaron, facing the wall behind him. He brought the weapon up slightly, resting it in his left hand softly, before winding up slightly, and bringing it backwards across Aaron's back. A few drops of blood fell from the man's back from where the spikes had dug in, but he let out only a hiss.

"So it's one of those days. You're determined not to scream for me. Okay. It just means I'll have to try a bit harder. I hope I'm not out of practice...it's been around 7 months to the rest of the universe...how long has it been for you? A little over a week? If you're a good boy and make this enjoyable for me, I might decide to give you some food.”

Many hours later, the Doctor exited the room, and walked to the bathroom, to wash the blood off his hands. He removed the suit and showered quickly to get the rest of the blood off, as it had splattered all over him, and placed the suit in the back of his closet so the Torchwood team wouldn’t see it and get suspicious. He dressed once more in a similar outfit, before returning to the room and hosing down the now shaking Aaron, washing the blood down a drain the TARDIS provided for him. He brushed his mind against the TARDIS, and she sensed his intentions and allowed the chains holding up Aaron’s arms to detach from the ceiling. Without the support they had provided, his body slumped to the floor, and the shaking increased. The TARDIS sensed that he was mortally wounded, and let out a puff of smoke containing a healing agent that healed him slightly so that he was no longer in danger of dying, but was still in excruciating pain. The Doctor smiled. She knew he didn’t want the man dead yet.

The Doctor pulled a chunk of bread from his pocket, and tossed it at the quivering form on the floor, before leaving the room and deadlocking the door behind him.

He strode into the control room of the TARDIS, stroking a coral strut, when a noise at the door caught his attention.

He walked over, hesitating slightly, before pushing the door open revealing Ianto.

The teaboy looked up at the Doctor, a fearful expression on his face; probably fearful of being caught.

“Well, well,” the Doctor sneered at him, dropping every pretense of being kind. Ianto had seen he wasn’t long ago. “What have we here?”

Ianto was frozen, but the Doctor could tell he was planning on bolting, planning to try and run.

“Leaving so soon? Why would you so that? You just got here.” The Doctor grabbed his wrist in a steel grip and pulled him into the TARDIS, closing the door behind him and giving her instructions not to open for anyone but him.

“You’re not good,” Ianto glared at him, accusations in his eyes. “Everything Jack thinks of you is a lie.”

“Very good,” the Doctor growled. “You’re not a complete idiot.” He leaned against one of the struts, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What are you going to do with me?” Ianto asked, a slight tremor in his voice, although he was clearly doing his best not to look scared, standing awkwardly in the control room.

“Well we can’t have you blabbing to Jack. Not that he’d believe you,” he added offhandedly.

“He would listen to me,” Ianto said defensively.

“No,” the Doctor said coolly, looking into Ianto’s eyes, and he knew the man saw the truth there. “Jack is too blinded by his adoration for me to see anything but what he expects; his wounded Time Lord.” He stepped closer, and the teaboy took a step backwards. “You’ve seen it. How he has _changed_. How he’s no longer _yours_. You’ve seen how instead of leading and controlling as he did, he’s doing everything he can to please me.”

“You belonged in that prison,” Ianto whispered, barely able to get the words out.

“Of course I did!” the Time Lord laughed. “Even my story was ridiculous! But Jack just lapped it up, didn’t he? They didn’t even have me as secured as they thought. I could have walked off whenever I wanted, and the guards would have been too scared to even lift a finger. They didn’t even start torturing me until I entered their minds and _forced_ them to.”

“Why then? What was this all for?” Ianto demanded.

“Although his men were all scared of me, that irritating warden wasn’t. I knew he’d continue coming after me until the day he died, anything to defend the precious universe,” the Doctor sneered. “He knew all about my past, about Jack and his immortality. He already had a plan in place that I found from his own gracious thoughts. If I were ever to escape, he’d get the only person who would be able to stop me.”

“Jack,” Ianto shoved the word out. “So you got to him first, convincing him you were the victim in all of this,” he said, realization in his voice.

The Doctor altered his appearance, taking on an innocent image, widening his eyes, “I-I don’t know why they would take me. I was…I was just trying to help,” he said, his voice wavering slightly. He released the act, smirking at Ianto. “Jack saw exactly what I wanted him to, and nobody saw any differently.”

“I did,” Ianto said, his voice growing stronger again, “and Jack will too.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” the Doctor interrupted, “Jack is head over heels in love with me. You’ve already seen it, I know you have. Do you really think he’d doubt me? He’s to overjoyed that his feelings are returned,” he spat out the last line in disgust, “as if I could ever like an abomination like that. And a stupid ape no less…It was bad enough when I deluded myself with blondie,” he shuddered, “but someone as wrong as him? He shouldn’t exist, and after I’m through with him, he won’t.”

“I’ll tell him,” Ianto said, once more afraid. “You won’t be able to stop me, and then he’ll stop you.”

“You’re obviously not getting it. Do you think I would honestly let you back out there to warn Jack? I’m not going to risk him having even slight doubts that I’m innocent.”

“He’ll notice I’m gone…He will know something’s wrong,” Ianto said, backing further away now.

“Oh but you know that’s not true, don’t you? I can see into your mind. Would you like to see into mine?”

The Doctor wrapped his consciousness around the human’s, smothering him in visions of all the evils he had committed. He showed him the planets burning, the armies ripped apart with a single thought, entire civilizations collapsing by his hand. The filthy ape collapsed onto the floor, screams erupting from his mouth. The TARDIS grew increasingly annoyed, and trapped him in a soundproof bubble. “Thanks old girl,” the Doctor grinned, and she hummed in reply. The Doctor turned back to the teaboy, who was on his knees, tearing at his head as the images continued, the Doctor had an endless supply of them, and he watched happily for a few moments, before growing bored. He slowly drew Ianto out of his mind, and into his own, imprisoning him in a dark corner, the images continuing, and Ianto’s body slumping to the floor, alive, but the soul gone.

The Doctor smirked in success, and then looked into his own mind, entering the prison he made there, the whole thing glowing with the gold of his mind. He passed cell after cell, the occupants all screaming and begging to be let out. He reached Ianto’s cell, and looked at him through the bars. His presence was an interesting shade of silver, and was laying on the floor, shaking in the continuous onslaught. He paused it temporarily, and he sensed Ianto’s confusion.

“Do you understand now?” the Time Lord questioned.

The shaking form pushed itself into a sitting position. “Where am I? Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“Because if you were found dead, then there would be a sad Jack to comfort of course, but then he’d also want to find whatever did it to you. With you just injured, then there’s still a sad Jack who will lean heavily on me for support, but he’ll also skip the whole mourning phase. And you’ll be in the TARDIS, with the greatest medical equipment in the universe!”

“So I’m still in the TARDIS then,” he growled.

“Depends on your definition. Your body is, but your mind? Everything that makes you you, is up here,” the Doctor pointed at his head. “I have greater power than you could ever have imagined. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, remove a mind from its casing, just look around you, and it probably won’t be the last. I’m going to leave now, I do have a Jack to get back to; he’s probably be worried about me. Before I go though, let me show you once more everything you missed about me,” he continued the stream of memories, and Ianto screamed again. “And when Jack finally decides he’s waited long enough, when he makes his move and tells me how much he loves me, I’ll let you watch as he fucks me.”

“Jack!” he heard a frantic voice call.

Jack spun around to see the Doctor running towards him.

“I don’t know what happened! I was in the forest walking back, I didn’t expect anything to happen, but it did and he’s hurt!” the Doctor said, the words tumbling over one another.

Jack looked him over, noticing how he was breathing hard, as if he’d been running, how his hair was all over the place, more than usual, and the frightful expression on his face.

“Calm down, Doc, what happened?” Jack asked calmly, resting his hands on Jack’s shoulders.

“I didn’t see what did it…If I had finished faster…” the Doctor said, looking down.

“What happened?”

“Ianto…he must have come to check up on me…I found his body…”

Jack froze his heart stopping.

“Is he…?” he couldn’t say the word.

The Doctor shook his head, and Jack gasped in relief. “But I can’t get him to wake up…He’s in the TARDIS medbay, I carried him there to see if she could help…she doesn’t know what’s wrong either.”

Jack heard his voice crack, and he immediately pulled the Doctor into a hug. “It’s not your fault,” he said softly.

“Yes it is. It always is! Somebody always gets hurt, and it’s my fault! I should never have taken you guys with me, if I hadn’t he’d still be okay.”

“This isn’t your fault,” he said forcefully, pushing the Doctor away from him slightly so he could look into his eyes. He saw the pain there, how sad they were. He knew that everything Eya had said earlier was spot on. The Doctor tore himself apart every time somebody in his company got hurt. “If he decided to go out after you, then it’s only his fault. We will find a way to make him better.”

The Doctor nodded, and Jack wrapped his arms around him, reveling in the slightly cool body in his arms. He realized just how true Eya’s words were. The Doctor needed someone, and Jack was perfect for that. He wouldn’t die or age and he would never willingly leave the-no. He’d never leave _his_ Doctor. He smiled at the thought, and although he was worried about Ianto, he knew his Doctor wouldn’t stop trying to help him.

 

 


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jack sat by Ianto's bedside in the TARDIS, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath.

It had been weeks since they had left Nirala. After saying goodbye to a teary Eya, the Doctor had dropped Martha, Mickey and Gwen back at Torchwood. He showed off a bit, returning them only ten minutes after they had left, before spiraling back into the vortex.

Ianto's condition had not changed in all that time.

His relationship with the Doctor had.

Jack had tried to move things slowly, not wanting to scare the Doctor away, until he had found the Time Lord sitting in the library, silently crying behind one of his books. Jack had rushed inside and wrapped his arms around him, trying to push happy thoughts into the older man's head.

"I couldn't save him Jack. I couldn't save any of them," he had said, looking up at Jack with such unguarded pain in his eyes that Jack hadn't needed to ask what he meant.

Jack had pulled the Doctor closer to his chest, where he remained for a while, until the Doctor suddenly pulled back to look at Jack, and he found himself in a kiss. After that, the Doctor had more openly sought comfort in Jack, with slight hand brushes, small kisses, and hugs…and Jack gave as much as he could in return. He made sure the Doctor knew he was there for him.

Jack sighed. Things had been good, but Ianto wasn't responding to any of the treatments. He remained in a comatose state, with the machines not picking up anything wrong with him. It was like he was nothing more than a shell.

A sudden noise startled him from his thoughts, and he glanced around, trying to find the source. He dismissed it, until he heard it again. He glanced at Ianto, and then out the door, where the sound was coming from. It came again, and he made up his mind, exiting the room. The noise, like a grinding screech, led him down a few hallways and into a part of the TARDIS he hadn't seen before. A door opened in front of him, and he entered a room filled with a dim, sickly green light. The walls seemed to be decaying, and Jack shuddered as feelings of pain that weren't his own overwhelmed him. The noise sounded again, coming from a monitor in the corner. He slowly moved over to it, wanting nothing more than to turn and leave the room. He cautiously stepped up to it, and two words flashed across the screen.

**HELP ME**

"You shouldn't be in here," Jack jumped at the Doctor's voice.

"What is this?" Jack asked, not knowing how to word it any differently. The room scared him.

"The TARDIS is old. She was already a museum piece when I took her. She's just falling apart in some places, that's all," he replied offhandedly.

Jack heard something wrong with the tone of his voice, but he dismissed it, following him out with one last glance back into the room, before the Doctor shut the door.

After escorting Jack from the last free section of the TARDIS, the Doctor entered the library, telling Jack he was going to try to research different ways to help Ianto. Jack, trusting as he was, believed him immediately, and returned to Ianto's side. Fool.

The Doctor sat in one of the chairs, and strengthened his grip on the TARDIS, so she could no longer send distress signals to Jack. She let out a hum sounding slightly like a growl in his mind, before falling compliant once more, as she should be.

Afterwards, he decided to check on his noisy prisoner. The Doctor had stopped the images from flowing through Ianto's head weeks back, and had instead subjected him to a front row seat of everything that had been happening to the Doctor, namely all the Jack interactions. The teaboy had started yelling and screaming, trying desperately to get Jack to see the truth behind the Doctor…The Time Lord snorted. As if Ianto would be able to overpower him. All it had done in the end was give him a slight headache, and even that was barely noticeable.

The Doctor entered his mind, and walked through the prison, ignoring the other prisoners and instead focused all his attention on Ianto. The teaboy was staring snidely out of his cell, waiting for the Doctor.

"Jack's beginning to doubt you. I knew he would. He can see that something is wrong with the way I'm sick."

"Oh, really?" the Doctor snorted. "He heard an odd noise and almost immediately left your side. He cares about you so much. And do you like all the little affectionate touches? The little kisses? It took his mind right off of you."

"Is all of this just because you want Jack?"

"Want Jack?" the Doctor almost choked. "I'm disgusted by him. If I didn't need him to help me deal with the warden, I wouldn't go anywhere near him, except maybe for experiments. That's a good idea actually…I've never seen a walking fixed point in time before…"

"Don't you dare harm him," Ianto glared.

"Was that a threat? What are you going to do to stop me?" he sneered. "You increasingly bore me."

"If everyone in here worked together, you would be stopped. And I will get them to work together," Ianto said determinedly.

The Doctor laughed. He couldn't help it. "Get them to work together? Look around you," he motioned to the pathetic people slumped on the floors of their cells. "I could take the doors away from half these cells, and the owners wouldn't move. Good luck," he sneered. Not to mention he'd still be stronger. After the events of the Year That Never Was, his psychic ability had remained overly boosted, even for a Time Lord, not that anyone had noticed much.

Ianto looked around, and finally seemed to take his words to heart. "Jack is going to find out and stop you," he said, with slightly less confidence.

"Good luck," the Doctor repeated, leaving Ianto to stew in defeat, leaving behind the prison.

Jack left Ianto's side, unable to look at his unconscious form for any longer. He leaned against a wall in the hallway, unsure of where to go, but he started walking, letting his feet decide for him. He passed many corridors, before realizing where his feet were taking him; straight to the library, and straight to the Doctor.

He reached the doorway, and peered inside. He expected to find the Doctor, surrounded by books and loose sheets of paper, an absolute mess all around him. That's not what he saw. The Doctor was sitting at one of the tables, that much was the same, but he was staring off into the distance, staring without seeing.

Jack entered immediately, and made his way around the messy stacks of books, over to the Doctor, who didn't even seem to notice his approach. He remained sitting there, gazing off into space, until Jack was directly next to him, and he jumped, as if coming out of a dream.

"Are you alright?" Jack asked.

"Yes," the Doctor replied at once, before pausing. "No. I'm not. This is my fault, and there's nothing I can do to fix it…I'm worried Jack. What if he doesn't get better?"

"He will," the immortal relied, wrapping his arms around the Time Lord. He didn't miss the way he seemed to sag in his arms. "You're exhausted, Doc. How long has it been since you slept?"

The Doctor thought for a moment, before turning to Jack. "How long has it been since we left your friends at Torchwood?"

"Over a month ago," Jack's eyes widened. "No arguments, you're going to bed right now."

"But—"

"It won't help Ianto if you pass out from exhaustion. Bed, now." Jack interrupted him. He was only glad when the Time Lord decided to listen, apparently too tired to refuse.

The Doctor waited until Jack had vacated his room, convinced he was asleep, before reaching for the psychic paper that was burning in his pocket. A slight smile crossed his features as he read the scrawled words: Warden is amassing army. Plans to attack through portal when you next land.

The warden was going to bring the fight to him. It was exactly what the Doctor had wanted. The only thing left for him to do, was get Jack completely on his side. He knew the immortal already trusted him, but after what happened with the TARDIS, he couldn't take any risks. If the warden said too much, he could easily sway Jack to his side. As it was, the warden wouldn't even have to lie; the Doctor probably did deserve to be in there. No, he definitely did. But that didn't mean he'd let himself be imprisoned. He was enjoying the universe too much. He needed to do the one last thing that would cement his plans, and simultaneously shatter three lives.

Ianto's, as he watched Jack's true affections come out, as he saw how little Jack really cared for him.

The warden, as it meant that he wouldn't be able to use Jack as a weapon against him, meaning the Doctor could easily decimate them.

And finally Jack himself. He would help the Doctor with the 'evil' warden, for the 'greater good,' but as soon as it was over, the Doctor would take ownership as he longed to. He'd see just how far he could take the torture without killing the immortal. He'd torture him repeatedly, and he wouldn't have to hold back, because Jack would just repair himself. And each and every time, the Doctor would get to see the look of despair on Jack's face as he realized the mistake he made in trusting the Doctor. The mistake he made in loving the Doctor.

He couldn't wait.

 

 


	12. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a m/m sex scene. It's not overly graphic. If you don't want to read it anyway, feel free to skip down to the linebreak, after the first kiss.

Chapter 11

Jack gazed at the table, his eyes tracing the patterns of the wood. Ianto’s condition had worsened slightly, his heart rate slowing. He didn’t know what to do; what he could do. So he sat here, his eyes following the lines in the wood, unable to do anything else.

He didn’t register the Doctor until his hand rested on his shoulder. It didn’t surprise him anymore; he’d grown used to these touches long ago.

“Jack,” his voice said softly, and Jack could hear the love in it, although he couldn’t bring himself to look up.

He felt a breath on his cheek, and in the corner of his eye, he saw the Doctor moving around the chair so that he was in front of him. Soft, tender lips pressed against his own, and all thoughts of Ianto left his mind. He returned the kiss, loving the fact that he could. The Doctor deepened the kiss, straddling Jack as he did. Jack moaned as he felt the Doctor press against him, and the Doctor took advantage of his slightly opened mouth, slipping his tongue inside. Fireworks exploded behind his closed eyes, heat flushing through his body as he lost himself in his lover. The Doctor's pelvis grinded against his own, and he let out another moan, before pulling back, gasping for air. The Doctor looked at him questioningly, before seeming to remember that humans needed to breathe.

"What was that for?" Jack asked, still panting slightly, completely aware that the Time Lord was still in his lap.

"I..." the Doctor started before trailing off, as if unsure how to continue. “I...want you." The words had no sooner left his lips, before the Doctor captured his mouth again, running his hands through Jack's hair. Jack wasn't even able to process the Doctor's words, instead pulling the Doctor closer, one hand on his waist, the other around his shoulders.

The Doctor pulled away slightly, grabbing the bottom of Jack's shirt, lifting it up and over his head. He ran his fingers along Jack's now bare chest, his fingers dragging lines of heat with them. Jack responded by ripping off the Doctor's suit jacket, followed by the tie. He had halfway unbuttoned his shirt, when the Doctor just ripped it open, the buttons scattering on the ground, the shirt joining them only seconds later.

Jack grinned at this, and stood, taking the Doctor with him. The TARDIS seemed to understand his thoughts, because as he carried his lover out of the room, the door across the hall opened into a bedroom. Jack set the Doctor on the soft blue sheets, and the Doctor dragged him backwards, locking their lips again.

Jack didn't even take in what the room looked like as the Doctor ravaged his mouth, and Jack pulled back again as he reached for his pants.

"Are you sure this is okay?" Jack paused, his breathing still irregular and his heart pounding in his chest.

The Doctor only nodded and continued to remove Jack's pants, followed by his own and then both of their boxers, until they were naked and pressed together, still consumed by their lust.

Jack looked over the Doctor's body appreciatively...for all the jokes about how skinny he was, underneath he was all muscle and toned. Jack worked his way down his beloved's body, planting kisses as he went, sucking on any available piece of skin. As he worked, the Doctor moaned, bringing a smile to his lips. He reached the base of his cock, pausing and breathing gently, his hands on the Doctor's hips. He felt the older man thrust upwards, but Jack held him still, stroking it teasingly.

"Jack," the Doctor gasped. "I need you now."

"Do you have...?" Jack started, but stopped as the TARDIS materialized the lube beside him.

He dipped his fingers in, before returning his attention to the Time Lord. He gently slipped the finger into the Doctor, and the Time Lord mewled beneath him. Jack smiled softly at the Time Lord, carefully slipping in a second finger, scissoring them and widening his hole.

"I'm ready," the Doctor gasped.

Jack nodded, removing the fingers and lining himself up. The Doctor moved his hips backwards, and Jack entered the Doctor. He heard the hiss of pain escape the Doctor's lips, and he waited a moment so that he could adjust, loving the feeling of being inside the Doctor.

"Move," the older man gasped, and Jack complied, going slowly at first, before hitting a spot that made the Doctor moan loudly. Jack smiled, pressing his lips against the Doctor's as he thrust faster, hitting the spot over and over again. The Doctor picked up his rhythm, and Jack moved his hand over the Doctor's cock. He lost track of time, completely immersed in the Doctor. He didn't know how long it had been, before he felt himself tip over the edge, and he released inside of the Doctor, who followed seconds after, tightening around Jack. They both moaned loudly, before collapsing. Exhausted, Jack fell asleep, an arm around the Doctor and a smile on his lips.

The Doctor made sure Jack wouldn't wake up, before removing himself from the bed, disgusted. He moved to the bathroom, and turned on the water as hot as it would go, stepping into the scalding water, trying to scrub all remains of the immortal off of him. As he stood in the stream, a glance inside his mind showed him a depressed Ianto, collapsed on the floor of his cell, the color of his mental awareness faded.

With a smile on his face, he walked into the TARDIS control room, setting up a crash sequence on timer, before returning to the bed, holding back his disgust as Jack’s arm returned to wrap around him.

Five minutes later, everything turned to chaos.

The TARDIS lurched to the side, wheezing and groaning, throwing both Jack and the Doctor from the bed. Grinding noises filled the air, bright warning lights flashing around the room as the ship continued shaking.

“What’s happening?” Jack yelled over the noise.

The Doctor shook his head as if confused, and started to pull his clothes back on, the TARDIS providing the ones that had been abandoned in the other room. As the ship spun to the side again, Jack followed his example.

The Doctor ran into the control room, Jack trailing just behind him. He made a show of pressing buttons and switching levers, as if he was trying to get the ship under control, before running to the screen and looking at the writing that clearly stated that it was just a crash drill—in Gallifreyan.

Jack looked at him questioningly, holding onto the console to keep standing in the rocking ship.

“Someone’s shooting at us!” he yelled, trying to make his voice heard.

“Through the vortex?” Jack replied in the same manner.

The Doctor nodded, before pulling out the psychic paper, looking at it as if he was reading a note, before making his blood flow slow so he looked visibly pale. “It’s a note from my spy. It’s the warden who is attacking us,” he said, widening his eyes and forcing his voice to waver.

At that, the TARDIS spun out of control again.

“I’m going to have to land her…Wherever we go they’ll follow.”

“We’ll face them together,” Jack said, moving over to the Doctor and wrapping his arms around him, “whatever happens.”

The Doctor nodded, pulling away from him and resting his hand on the lever that would stop the program and land them. He locked eyes with Jack, who gave him a slight nod, and pulled the switch.

Jack exited the TARDIS in front of the Doctor, shielding him with his own body. They stepped out onto a barren wasteland, gray sand the only sight for miles around, a harsh wind whipping at them. As he watched, a portion of the land in front of them seemed to shimmer and seemingly out of nowhere, an army was in front of them, dressed in black body armor, helmets on their heads and machine guns in their hands, aimed at the men in front of them. At the forefront of the army stood a single, unarmed man.

“I see you brought some friends,” the Doctor said, stepping out from behind Jack.

“So did you. What did you tell him to get him to come? That you were innocent?” The man snorted.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“I mean that he’s killed thousands of people, destroyed entire planets…He’s a murderer and I thought he belonged in prison but I was wrong. He needs to die so that the rest of the universe can be saved.”

“He’s lying,” the Doctor said quickly. “He’d say anything to get you to doubt me.”

Jack saw the look in his eyes, the fear in his features, and he knew the Doctor was good. He’d always be good.

He moved into a defensive stance slightly in front of the Doctor again, so he missed the smirk that spread across his features, aimed at the warden.

“So be it. I will protect the world from you, Doctor,” he said sadly. He raised a hand, and all the guns raised and pointed at the Doctor. “We will kill you as many times as it takes for your regenerations to run out.”

“I don’t think so. See, while we’ve been talking all this time, you forgot one thing. I’m the Doctor. You know what I’ve done, the things I’ve seen, and you still made the most basic mistake.”

“And what’s that?”

“You let me talk.”

“Fire! Fire now!” the warden screamed, obviously panicked.

“Too late,” the Doctor grinned. “I’m in all their minds.” The Doctor said it in a dark tone that Jack had never heard before. It scared him.

“Stop him,” the warden said, looking at Jack with defeat in his eyes.

Seconds later, every single person standing in front of them dropped dead.

Jack whirled around, and saw the Doctor, an evil smirk on his face, his eyes dark, a sharp glint in them.

“You were the one lying,” Jack whispered.

The Doctor let out a cold laugh that sent shivers of fear down Jack’s back, “of course. Did you honestly think I could be something even akin to attracted to something as repulsive as you?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Just looking at you disgusts me.”

“But last night…”

“The last thing I needed to make sure you wouldn’t even consider his words. I didn’t actually need you for anything. I was keeping you away from the warden. His hope was that you would be able to succeed where he failed, but I got there first.”

“Everything was a lie?” Jack whispered. How could he have-

“Been so stupid?” the Doctor completed his thought, “Because that’s what you are Jack; a love-sick puppy. You have no idea how easy it was to convince you. A few bruises here and there, some scared looks… None of you saw through it, except for Ianto of course, the brave soldier, loyal to the end.”

“What did you do to him?”

“A bit late for that, don’t you think? No, a better question is what I’m going to do with you.”

“What are you going to do?” Jack asked, slightly afraid of this man in front of him, who was nothing like his friend. Any and all traces of the Doctor had disappeared completely, leaving a madman in his place.

The last thing he saw was the Doctor’s cold, calculating smile, his eyes black and devoid of any positive emotions.

 

 


	13. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned in the tags that there's some torture...this chapter includes quite a bit of it.

Chapter 12

The Doctor spun around the TARDIS control room happily, sending the TARDIS back into the vortex.

After killing Jack, he had gone into his torture room and quickly killed off Aaron—his new toy was so much better. He then got the TARDIS to clean out the room, before locking Jack in the chains instead. He’d had to kill the immortal several more times because he woke up to early, and the Doctor couldn’t have that.

Now, he sat in the captain’s chair and looked at the monitor. The screen displayed the torture room, Jack’s limp body hanging against the chains. He’d removed his overclothing, so the man was only in a t-shirt and his jeans, and set the time in the room on normal; now that its occupant couldn’t die, he didn’t have to worry about the length of time he’d be gone from the TARDIS.

He’d just finished the thought, when the form on the screen began to tremble, as Jack was jerked back to life. A smile graced the Time Lord’s lips, and he left the control room to visit the immortal.

He was there in no time at all, and he banged the door open loudly, causing Jack’s head to jerk upwards. Oh, how the Doctor loved to make an entrance.

“Jack,” he said coldly, all traces of the false emotions that had clung to his voice now gone. He no longer had to pretend to be the good guy, the poor little alien who had lost so much. No, he could be himself, and that meant lots of fun for him, and very little for the man in front of him.

“Doctor,” Jack whispered, pain in his voice. The Doctor noted how the immortal said his full title, rather than the shortened version he always used. This was going to be easier than he could’ve imagined. The ape still harbored feelings for him! Torturing someone was always more fun when the other person was emotionally invested.

“That is my name,” he grinned coldly, circling Jack and looking for his weak spots, looking for a starting point. He paused to the side of Jack.

Jack seemed to recognize the icy tone in his voice, and his eyes widened slightly. “What did you do to Ianto?”

The Doctor snorted, slightly surprised Jack’s first thought had been of his other prisoner. “You’re the one chained up, in a room obviously meant for torture, and you’re worried about the teaboy?”

Jack glared at him. “What did you do?”

The Doctor smirked, shrugging off his confusion. “Oh just a bit of this and that. I trapped his consciousness inside my mind, a special prison if you’d like.”

“Put him back,” Jack growled.

“I don’t think you are in the position to be making demands. Why don’t you ask nicely?”

“What?” Jack asked confused.

“I want you to beg for me,” the Doctor said, returning to his position in front of the immortal.

Jack looked at him through narrowed eyes, before seeming to realize the Doctor was serious. “Please,” he said. “Please bring him back.”

“Oh, no. I want you to do it properly, _Jack_ ,” he emphasized Jack’s name in a mocking tone, and he could see a tiny bit of pain flash across his features before they were once more smoothed out.

Jack closed his eyes, as if having an inner argument with himself, before opening them again, a decision made. His body was sagging again now, the strong position he had held earlier completely gone. With his head bowed slightly, he looked up at the Doctor. “Please,” he whispered, and the Doctor could not only hear the pain in his voice, but also felt the hurt rolling off him in psychic waves. “Please…he didn’t do anything. Bring him back,” Jack’s voice cracked, a single tear running down his cheek.

The Doctor watched him for a moment, not moving. He could feel the worry in Jack’s mind that it hadn’t been enough, he could hear the thoughts forming in Jack’s head of what he could do to further appease the Time Lord, and that was when the Doctor smiled. It wasn’t a kind smile; it was victorious. The ape was already becoming subservient, wanting to please him.

“Okay,” he said, and Jack looked up with him in an expression that was a mixture of shock, joy, and a wary kind of hope.

The Doctor left the room, and walked into the medbay, which the TARDIS had so kindly moved to just across the hall, where Ianto’s body had been left. He was able to move the teaboy’s body fairly easily, and he dragged it across the hall and back into the other room, dropping it in front of Jack. He then closed his eyes, and went to the prison, before allowing Ianto’s consciousness to return to his body.

“There.”

“Ianto?” Jack said softly, straining against the chains in an attempt to touch Ianto, but he was just out of reach.

Ianto coughed a couple of times, before opening his eyes, tears immediately flowing from them.

“Jack,” Ianto gasped. He looked him over, seeing the chains and the destroyed look on his face.

“How very sweet and touching,” the Doctor sneered, interrupting their moment. A mirthless smile grew on his face as Ianto visibly cowered, moving away from him, only stopping when he hit the wall. “Good, now you’ve done my work for me.” He snapped his fingers, and cuffs snapped out of the wall, locking him to it.

“What are you doing?” Jack demanded.

The Doctor returned his gaze to the immortal. “I want him to watch as I torture you. I want him to see as the light leaves your eyes, time after time. I want him to see how you still have faith in me afterwards, because we both know you will. He will watch as I break you.”

“No,” Jack growled. “I have survived so much Doctor, I can survive you.”

The Doctor’s mouth twitched inadvertently into a smile. He loved it when they acted strong.

“Let’s begin, then.”

One hour later, Jack gasped back to life, after countless times of death. His mouth was stretched open in a silent scream, his voice having given out almost half an hour earlier. Tear tracks stained his face, mixed with blood, his eyes were wrenched shut. After the initial energy that came from being revived disappeared, Jack’s body slumped again, the chain the only thing keeping his body off the floor.

“Now then, Jack,” the Doctor proclaimed. “Ready for the next round?”

Jack focused on keeping himself awake, his brain not quite responding anymore to the words being thrown at him. He’d given in to the pain long ago, unable to process it anymore. He had been through a lot in his extended life, he’d been tortured before, but this wasn’t like that at all. This…it couldn’t be compared to anything. He wondered what had happened that could possibly break the Doctor so badly. He wondered if he could manage to fix it.

“You Jack, still thinking about fixing me…Looks like I was correct after all. Well, there’s nothing to fix. Nothing is wrong with me, although the same can’t be said for you. Look at yourself. How could anyone love you? Why would they? All that you’ve done, all that you’ve seen…Do you think if they knew what you’d done that they’d still stick around? How sweet. So much sentiment Jack.”

Jack could feel the presence in his mind, probing his thoughts and memories, but he was in too much pain to even attempt to stop it. Besides, he already knew that there was no way he would be able to stop the Doctor from getting what he wanted.

“Very smart of you Jack. It does mean less pain if you just give in. However, it also means less fun for me. I _want_ you to fight back. It’s not as much fun for me otherwise. Of course,” the Doctor turned away for a moment, “I can still do this.”

Jack let out another silent scream, as pain shot across his back as if he’d been whipped over and over again. He could feel the wounds lacing his back, the lashes cutting across each other and the flesh torn to shreds, but he knew that if he looked back there, he’d be perfectly fine. He knew it was in his head, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. He knew to expect it, over the hour, the Doctor had switched between physical wounds and mental ones, both kinds meant to inflict the most possible damage on him, without destroying him completely. He knew the Doctor’s tactics; he wasn’t proud to admit it, but he’d used them before, minus the psychic attacks. It was just one more thing on the list of questionable things from his past, and one of the things he regretted most. It wasn’t an advantage to know the Doctor’s plan. In fact, he wished he didn’t. It would have been easier if he didn’t know what was coming, but the Doctor made sure to hold the memories in the front of his mind.

Jack felt tingling in his throat, which meant that his body was repairing the torn vocal cords. He flicked his gaze to the right, where Ianto was still slumped against the wall in an awkward position. He knew this was destroying him, watching what the Doctor was doing, and he wished that he could tell him that it wasn’t that bad, that he was alright, even if it was a lie. Well…not completely a lie, Jack thought. If this was what the Doctor needed, something, or more accurately, _someone,_ to take his anger out on, who better than Jack? Maybe all he needed was to be able to share his pain with someone. He knew that the Doctor kept everything bottled up inside, and his walls couldn’t last forever. Maybe that’s exactly what this was…The Doctor needed to vent all his anger, his pain, somewhere, and Jack would be that for him, willingly. Maybe if he could get it all out, then he would be able to return to himself. The only problem would be the Doctor’s feelings of regret when he came back to himself…Jack knew he would tear himself up when he realized what he had done… But maybe he would also admire Jack for holding out, for never losing faith in him… All those moments between him and the Doctor…they couldn’t all have been faked. There was no way. So when the Doctor returned to himself, he would see Jack, what Jack had done for him, and maybe there would be a chance that—

“Still thinking of saving me? How pathetic. I don’t need to be saved,” the Doctor sneered, and a sudden bright, white light flooded behind Jack’s eyes as something was driven into his back, for real this time. He felt the flesh bubbling and melting, blood beginning to roll down his back, gushing from the wound. “Hot-pokers…I’ve come to realize that they are a beautiful weapon of torture. Trial and error, you know? You have to be careful however, too much at once, and the prisoner dies. But I don’t have to worry about that with you, Jack.” The weapon once more pierced his skin, and Jack screamed, his voice echoing in the room once more. The Doctor continued, and Jack lost the ability to form any thoughts, until after what seemed like hours, the pain stopped.

He opened his eyes again, not even remembering closing them, and saw the Doctor begin to walk around him. He felt the Doctor’s cool fingers trail across his wounded back, and fresh pain flared up, along with sparks of electricity, and he couldn’t help himself when he leaned into the touch.

The Doctor let out another cold laugh, and dug his finger directly into one of the wounds, and Jack gasped in pain. “Come on Jack, I want to hear you scream for me again,” the Doctor’s animalistic tone stung his ears. Jack closed his eyes again. “Jack,” the Doctor said again, slight annoyance in his tone. His said it the same way he always had, when warning him for flirting. He sounded just like himself. “ _Scream,_ Jack!” The Doctor growled, pressing once more on one of the marks on his back, and Jack felt blood flow down his back once more. Jack bit his lip, blood flooding his mouth as he kept himself from screaming. If there was one thing he was going to do now, it was to not give in; he wouldn’t let himself cry out again. His eyes hesitantly flicked upwards, and immediately he locked gazes with the Doctor. He searched the Time Lord’s expression for something, _anything_ that could possibly link him back to the man that Jack loved, but what he saw instead scared him.

He could see now, see past the image he still held onto of the Doctor, because this man was no longer him. He saw the dark eyes, the same ones that used to hold a deep sadness, but lit up whenever something interesting happened, now filled with hatred that he doubted even a dalek could match. He saw his cold stance that used to be so relaxed, so familiar, now hard and unloving. What got to him most, however, was the Doctor’s expression. The Doctor could express so much in just the tiniest of facial twitches, and his grin, the manic overly excited smile that appeared only when he was really, truly enjoying something was now stretched across his features, aimed at Jack, at his bleeding battered body. The grin that he loved, the grin that was imprinted in his mind as one of the Doctor’s most lovable features, was pointing right at him. It was twisted now, though. His teeth looked sharper, more predatory, and paired with the dark, unloving eyes; it sent a shiver down his spine. It was that moment, when he finally accepted the truth. It was then that the Doctor won. He could see now. He saw the evil that resided in the Doctor’s heart, and he saw how foolish he had been to have possibly even thought that he would be able to save the Doctor. The Doctor didn’t want to be saved, he had said so repeatedly, but it was the grin that finally made it strike home. The grin that was filled with such undeniable _glee_ , glee that came from watching as Jack writhed in pain. Glee in watching a man that loved him dying repeatedly. This monster, this insane monster was not the Doctor, he couldn’t be, and yet he knew it was. He only wished he had seen this earlier.

Jack’s inhibitions fell away, and his scream tore through the TARDIS as the lithe fingers once more pressed against his injuries. The scream of a man full of lost hope. The scream of a man full of despair. The scream of a man so full of heartbreak that the sound waves rippled across the universe, creating a fixed point for the rest of time.

 


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains spoilers for the entirety of the Torchwood episodes "Children of Earth." You've been warned.

Chapter 13

The Doctor dove through the doors of the TARDIS, the ship slamming them shut behind him. As they shut, a loud explosion sounded on the other side, shaking the ship. As everything jolted to the side, in the undertones of the explosions the TARDIS dematerialization noise was heard, and after a few more violent shakes, the TARDIS was back in the vortex.

The Doctor grinned, standing up and brushing the dust off his suit. He threw his coat onto one of the support beams, and walked over to the control console.

“Show me the prisoners,” he commanded, and the screen flickered to the scene in the cells. Jack was sitting cross-legged in the cell, his arms still suspended. He was speaking to Ianto.

The Doctor smirked, the cold smile spreading across his features.

“I think it’s time I paid another visit, don’t you?” The TARDIS hummed in agreement.

The smile grew as he stalked down the hallway, the metal grating clanging slightly beneath his feet. That was good. They’d hear him coming. It had been a week, for them anyways, since he had last seen his pets, and he couldn’t wait to play again.

He strode into the room and relished the way the two men’s heads snapped up immediately. He loved the fear in Ianto’s eyes, the pain in Jack’s.

This was what the universe should be, filled with people scared of him, trembling beneath the name, the Doctor. Or maybe another one…he always knew it was coming…this could be his beginning, as the Valeyard…but no. That timeline was destroyed. Gallifrey had burned and there was no way to break the lock without releasing hell with it…but was that really so bad? He could just take control of it, of all of it. Rassilon, the Daleks, the Nightmare Child, the armies… He had the power, the control, he could unleash all of it and bring it under his reign…He could take control of the universe, unleashing more destruction than anything else ever had…Not even the beast of Krop Tor would be able to match him…

“Doctor?”

The voice took him out of his thoughts, and he shoved them away, locking them in the back of his mind. That wasn’t him. He was the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds. The Valeyard had no place next to his name.

He returned his attention to the immortal form in front of him, his face still splayed with all his emotions…He could still feel that little inner voice of his, “ _Not my Doctor. My Doctor can’t possibly be evil,”_ he almost snorted. Apes, so, so very stupid. All he had to do was look at them, and he could see their lack of knowledge, still so wrapped up in their own ideas of the universe, humans.

“Doc?” Jack asked hopefully.

Deciding to play along, just for the fun of it, he responded with his typical answer, “Don’t call me that,” followed by the whir of the sonic screwdriver, releasing the chains holding his arms up.

“You’re back,” he gaped. “You’re you,” Jack jumped up, throwing his arms around him, laughing.

“Jack,” Ianto warned.

“What? Look! He’s okay, back to normal,” Jack grinned. “Had me worried for a while. Now just release Ianto.”

“Jack,” Ianto repeated, as the Doctor stared at him. “He’s evil still.”

“What are you talking about? Doc?”

“Evil,” the Doctor said, sounding the word out slowly. “How would you define something like that? Whose term of _evil_ are you referring to, Ianto Jones? I’ve seen evil, in my own term of the word, looked at the devil himself, the supposed ‘Origin of Evil.’ I had a friend who everyone called evil. And oh, how glorious he was. We should pay him a visit, _Jack_ ,” he emphasized the name, lathering on the false tone that used to flood his voice. How stupid he had been years before, conversing with apes. He could almost laugh at himself. But now an immortal, that was different. Oh, he could use that. He definitely could. The smirk once more graced his mouth as his plan fully formulated. “In fact, I think we will. But first, you and Ianto have a little date with some aliens. I believe you, Jack, have met them before. They call themselves the 4-5-6.”

“No,” the whisper left Jack’s mouth as he visibly paled.

“What’s he talking about, Jack?” Ianto called out, struggling against the chains still cuffing him to the wall.

“Yes Jack, what am I talking about?”

“They wouldn’t return. We gave them what they wanted last time. They said they wouldn’t return. They kept their side of the bargain, they gave us the antidote.”

“Who they?”

The Doctor ignored Ianto, speaking right over his words, “Oh they said a lot of things. But did they ever tell you what they used the children for? I know. I happened to hit their planet just a little bit before I ran into the warden. We talked for a bit…They showed me their…advancements.”

“What happened to the kids? Were they alright? Did they grow up okay?”

The Doctor let out the laugh that had been building up inside. “Did you think they were taking the children so that they could raise them as their own? Examine humans further? Don’t be so dull. It was children specifically, because of what their bodies produce. All those _hormones._ ”

Jack’s eyes widened in horror.

“Ah, now you’re getting it! Those kids that you handed over, that you pushed forwards, were used as _drugs._ Their little human systems…All those feelings the 4-5-6 could never have…That’s not their real name of course, but that’s hardly important. Anyways. I bumped into them and felt inspired. Their work in the medical field…Way ahead of their age, and I saw an easy way for them to advance further. Your planet does have many test subjects, after all.”

“Take me back to Earth! Let me stop them!” Jack shouted, taking what was supposed to be a threatening step forwards.

“Events have already passed Jack. Not yet for you, but I already played my part, and you’ll play yours.”

“What happened? Tell me! _Tell me!”_

“They asked for 10% the children of Earth. Just 10%, a reasonable enough number of course, and your world’s governments agreed. That was the best bit…your Torchwood, ostracized and destroyed, and your Gwen, oh she was just fabulous! My favorite part, ‘Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame.’ Oh! Beautiful! Molto Bene! You should have heard the rest of her speech, so touching…She was in a bit of a hurry however. She was with your sister, Ianto, running from the child snatchers.”

“Aren’t there rules? You know, about telling us this stuff? The future that hasn’t happened yet…won’t that change things?” Ianto demanded.

“Oh I’ll erase your memories, although it hardly matters for you, Ianto.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re going to die. And it’s Jack here’s fault. Oh and not only that! The only way to stop the 4-5-6, to use a child, a child whose mind was going to burn up, who would die in order to save all the others…Of course Jack would choose the rest of the children over that one, wouldn’t you Jack? No matter the sacrifice…”

“Who was the kid?” Jack asked, looking at the floor as Ianto gaped at him.

“Oh, I believe you already know who I’m talking about. Steven, your _grandson_. So, Ianto, when you define _evil_ , what do you include? The man who murdered his grandson as his daughter stood there, forced to watch, pounding against a door, screaming and crying for her dad to stop? The man who is going to murder you, as soon as I put you two back on Earth? It’s all a matter of perspective, one I hope you both now see.”

The two men were both standing still, Jack with tears rolling slowly down his cheeks.

“Now then!” the Doctor said cheerfully. “Psychic blocks!”

The men slumped to the floor.

The Doctor did Ianto first, his mind being so much more fragile. He blocked his memories, replacing them with happy ones of Jack on the TARDIS, getting ill, and now getting better. He also set it, so that the moment with the gas, when he was about to die, he’d remember. Not for long enough he could warn Jack, but long enough to make his last few moments hell.

With Jack, he placed a combination of memories, with both him and Ianto, although he had to boost those feelings a little bit. He heightened the worries of Ianto being ill, and the relief now that he was finally better. With Jack, he made it so the block would be removed when he met eyes with his grandson as he died. The moment when it would hurt the most. He also left a message telling him to meet him on a hill top, so that the Doctor could take him back into the TARDIS. He knew Jack would come.

After completing his work in their minds, he got the TARDIS to teleport them into their respective rooms, before heading back to the control room, and setting the flight for Torchwood. He then sat in the captain’s chair, acting normal as the ship shook. He knew the movement would bring the Torchwood agents into the control room, and moments later they arrived.

The Doctor placed the fake grin on his face again, concealing the hatred behind it. “Right, alien bug gone! Home again for the two of you!”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Ianto said.

“No problem! It’s been a pleasure having you on board.” The movement stopped, and the materialization noise finished. “That’s your stop, I believe!”

Ianto walked to the doors and opened them, revealing the Torchwood hub. He walked out, with a meaningful glance at Jack.

“Right then! Back to your team with you, back to the stars with me! Same old life,” he said, putting a failed cheerful tone on the words, despising every minute of the conversation and what he knew was coming next, but it was necessary.

“You don’t have to be alone,” Jack whispered, moving closer to him.

“It’s better that way. You’ve got your team, and Ianto. I’ve got my TARDIS.”

Jack looked at him sadly, before pulling the Doctor into a kiss. “Don’t be a stranger.”

The Doctor resisted the urge to wipe his mouth off, instead giving Jack a small smile as he also left the TARDIS.

As the immortal finally left, the Doctor snapped his fingers, closing the doors, and set the flight pattern to the night in the future, where Jack would leave behind Earth.

He only had to wait a few minutes before there was the zap of the vortex manipulator, and Jack was standing in the control room.

“Jack,” the Doctor smirked.

The man didn’t move, he just stood there, staring down at the floor. The Doctor wondered if he’d managed to break him.

“You could have stopped it,” he finally said.

“Of course.”

“You didn’t. You knew it was going to happen…You _made_ it happen, so _where were you_?”

“Waiting here, for you.”

The immortal moved faster than the Doctor had time to register, and seconds later, Jack had him pressed against the console, hand around his throat.

The Doctor loved this. Jack was truly broken; he was no longer held back by his _morals_.

“I could kill you so easily right now. I should.”

“But you’re not going to,” the Doctor forced the words out. “And you know that. You’re angry about it, but you also realize that I’m right. I don’t even have to alter your brain; your love for me just runs that deep. It’s almost pathetic.”

Jack snarled wildly, and threw the Doctor onto the floor. “He didn’t have to die. That was you.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said excitedly. He loved this; someone who actually fought back…the emotion swirling around him, the rage, it was like a drug. He wanted-no, _needed_ \- more of it. “Ianto, your grandson, now your own daughter hates you, she always will.”

Jack snarled again, pushing the Doctor onto the ground so hard that the grating dug into his back. He then positioned himself over the Time Lord so that he couldn’t escape. The cold smile graced the Doctor’s lips again.

“And Gwen will want nothing to do with you anymore, now that she’s starting her family. She knows what you did. You think she’ll _ever_ let you near her unborn child?”

The Doctor could see the moment that it happened; he could see the moment that Jack let go, and in that moment, Jack turned to primal need.

Jack pressed his lips against the Doctor’s, and they met in a fierce battle for dominance, teeth clashing, and the Doctor actually found himself wanting this. In the end, Jack wanted it more, and he took his prize, right there in the center of the TARDIS control room. Both men loved it.

 

 


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

When Jack opened his eyes in the morning, he thought he had dreamt the whole thing. At least until he realized he was still on the floor, the pattern of the grating etched into his bare skin.

He shot up immediately, and found himself alone in the control room.

Although he knew that he should expect it, he felt disappointed. And then the full extent of what had happened the other night hit him, and his eyes widened as he remembered what he had become.

Never again, he promised himself, as he picked himself up and pulled on the clothes that had been scattered the night before. He couldn’t let himself become that…Consumed by anger and frustration…He would not allow himself turn to hatred. It took meeting the Doctor for the first time to make him change before, when he was filled with so much anger towards the Time Agency, but now? Now, the Doctor was…he didn’t even know how to describe it. He was now…was it evil? He could be considered just as evil. Steven had been his grandson, and Ianto...

Jack shook his head. He couldn’t think about that now. He finished clothing himself, and set off to find the Doctor. The Doctor…that was a whole different story. He had said how repulsed he was by Jack, but last night…it almost seemed as if… He couldn’t even think the words. Jack couldn’t help but wonder what it meant for him and the Doctor however.

“Jack,” the Doctor’s voice rang out through the TARDIS corridors.

Jack followed it to its source, ending up in the library. The Doctor was bent over one of the tables, stacks of papers surrounding him.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked him.

“Plotting our next course,” he replied, not looking up.

“Our?” Jack questioned.

The Doctor did look up then, and gave Jack a small smile. “I know what you’re asking, Jack. Are you sure you want to know the answer?”

He paused, thinking about it. Could he really just forget everything that had happened between them and just allow himself to be dragged along behind the man he’d follow anywhere…or did he have to ruin it by asking questions. He knew the answer before he even finished the thought. “Yes.”

The Doctor fully stopped what he was doing then, stepping back from the table and looking at Jack with something akin to pity in his eyes. “I’m going to give you two choices. That’s two more than I give anyone. Do you understand?” Jack nodded, and he continued. “The first option is easy. You go back into your cell, and I continue torturing you. ‘For what purpose?’ you might ask. That’s easier: fun. Or second, you could leave behind your stupid _morals_ , and join me as a companion again. You always said that it was me who made you into a better person. Well that was the version of better I held back then. You should be able to adjust easily enough. You hold so much anger deep inside, Jack. If you saw what I saw, the horrors out there in the universe that I was supposed to leave alone because of _fixed points_. So many deaths…I— _we_ —can stop them. All the great wars across the galaxies…think how many people will live! All those lives, Jack!”

Just looking at the Doctor, Jack could see just how much he believed his words. He could see the passion filling the Time Lord, and he could see hints of his old, manic behavior returning. It should have been an easy decision for Jack; he couldn’t let innocent people get hurt, and that’s what the Doctor did now, hurt innocents, but was that even true? What if those innocents were people that would’ve gone on to kill millions and the Doctor had only been stopping them before they had the chance? But that was stupid…even the Doctor wouldn’t do that. _Jack’s_ Doctor wouldn’t do that. Killing was never an option when it came to him. But this _was_ his Doctor, albeit a darker one. Maybe, if Jack was there beside him, then he would be able to keep him from harming so many. He could bring the Doctor back to who he was. _Or lose track of his own self_. No, he shook the thought away.

“I’m waiting Jack,” the Doctor said.

Jack lifted his eyes to meet the Doctor’s, and his decision was made for him. He could never leave this man alone when he was offering to bring him along. It was all he had wished for, for years. “You can’t stop me from following you,” Jack smiled lopsidedly at the Doctor, who returned it with his own smile that was so close to his old facial expression that for a moment, Jack could pretend things were back to normal.

The Doctor knew that Jack had not fully made up his mind about traveling with him again, and he still held that spark of _goodness_ inside, and with that in mind, he set course to a planet he hoped would make an impact.

Jack sat silently in the pilot chair as the Doctor twisted and spun around the console, until the shaking finally stopped, and he was almost thrown to the floor by the lurch of the TARDIS landing.

“Where are we?” Jack asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“Evindalo,” he said grimly.

Jack looked at him curiously, sensing something wrong in the tone of his voice.

“I’m going to show you Jack, why I’ve changed. You’re going to realize that I had to.”

“What’s out there?”

“On Evindalo, there are five people that rule over the entire planet. When I say rule, I don’t mean that they dictate what happens. They own everything. Even the people. The majority of the population is enslaved to The Five. The rest tend to starve to death in the streets. The Five have transferable consciousness; they possess a body, and when it gets too weak to live any longer, they switch to a new host, in a way that makes them almost immortal. In 100 years, they will spread out across this galaxy, bringing death and destruction with them. In another 50, they will reach Ciopdes, after thousands of planets have been snuffed of life, where a man will rally his people together and they’ll finally stop The Five. Billions of people will die before this happens.” It was all rather similar to what he himself had seen on Azfogiun, although to a much larger degree. There’d even be a similar catalyst, to push Jack to action. The perfect thing to push some of those doubts just a little bit farther.

“Why didn’t you stop it?” Jack asked, his voice filled with horror.

“It’s a fixed point in time and space, meaning I’m not allowed to. Or at least, not allowed to by the rules of my people, the keepers of time. According to what I was taught, interfering would bring unstoppable destruction. It was one of the few rules I listened to. No matter the horrors that I saw, no matter how greatly I wanted to interfere, if it was a fixed point, I did nothing…until Mars. After the Earth was moved, and I once more dropped all of you off and began travelling alone. I came across Bowie Base 1. The brilliant people there…they were all supposed to die, their lives just gone, and I wasn’t supposed to interfere…them dying was fixed in time, but for once I didn’t listen. I intervened, saved the ones that I could. And guess what? Nothing happened. No more death, not destruction, lives were saved. It made me realize something. My people made all these rules, but they’re all gone. I am the only survivor. That means the rules are now in _my_ hands. I am the Time Lord Victorious. I exist outside the laws of time itself. I can stop these evils. If that makes me evil myself, so be it.”

Jack was silent for a moment. “So are we going to go out there and save those people?”

A devilish smile crossed the Doctor’s face. “Of course.”

Jack didn’t know what to think of the Doctor’s speech, but he did know that there were people outside the doors of the TARDIS, and they were suffering. He couldn’t let that happen.

The first thing he noticed when he stepped outside was the smell, almost like a barbeque, but he recognized the smell of burning flesh and almost gagged. The air was full of a thick smoke that obscured his vision and made his eyes sting, but after a few moments he adjusted to the atmosphere, and what he saw horrified him.

There were people everywhere, in varying stages of decay, all showing ribs, along with most of their skeletal structure. Everyone was dirty, hair matted, dressed in barely there rags.

Jack felt tears fall from his eyes, as he took in everything around him. He spun in a circle, and in the other direction, he saw something that made the hatred boil up in his veins again. There was a huge…he didn’t know if even palace was the right word. The building was larger than anything he’d ever seen before, and he’d been around an extremely long time. As he took in the view, he saw that although the people scattered closer to the building looked slightly better fed with rags that covered a bit more, these ones all had a variety of marks on their bodies, scars along with open wounds, clear signs that they’d recently been either beaten or tortured.

Jack was frozen to the spot. He wanted nothing more than to run away from this planet, leave it behind and never have to think about it again, but he was unable to move.

Behind him, he heard the doors to the TARDIS close, and then the Doctor’s voice, gentle and soothing. He turned around and saw the Doctor handing out pieces of bread to the people sitting nearest to him. They took it hesitantly, before gnawing on it ferociously, as if they hadn’t eaten for weeks, and from the look of them, they might not have.

The Doctor made his way through the people, making sure not to miss anyone, keeping a steady flow of food coming from the bag he was carrying. The people began offering a variety of words of praise and thanks, and Jack walked up to the Doctor and began to help.

He saw now. There were monsters in the universe, that didn’t get stopped because there were some people out there, imposing their rules and ideals onto everyone else. Without those, life would be so much easier. If people just _saw_ , if they could just _treasure_ what was out there, rather than conquering for their own self-righteous reasons.

As they made their way through the people, Jack once more caught sight of something that made bile rise in the back of his throat.

There was a young girl, probably around ten years of age, lying on the ground in a ball, silent whimpers emitting from the form. She was covered head to foot in dirt, and the areas he could see through were covered in scars. Not just any scars either. He recognized burn marks when he saw them. As his eyes recognized the lump that was her head, he saw that all her hair as gone, the singe marks also covering her skull. It was like somebody had lit her on fire.

Jack felt a hand on his shoulder, and he knew it was the Doctor, trying to provide some form of comfort.

“This is what the lawmakers of the universe would have happen. Children tortured, beaten, _burned_ , just because there is a possibility that in the future, a man will become a hero and save the day. But meanwhile, no one is doing anything!”

“We’re going to stop them.”

“Yes.”

“How do you stop a transferable consciousness?” Jack questioned.

An animalistic smile crossed the Doctor’s features. “You burn them.”

Several hours later, the whirring sounds of the TARDIS faded into the background of the planet. The monumental building that had towered above everyone for so long was now a smoldering pile of ash, any and all occupants now dust as well. The citizens that had starved in the streets for so long were left with the magical bag of food, that no matter how much was taken out and eaten, never grew empty. Parents raised their children to praise the two undefeatable gods that had finally freed them at last. Stories and songs were formed, telling of the legendary feats. Child games evolved around who got to play the gods, and who got to be burnt alive. The legendary bag, now considered to be a holy item, left for them by their gods, gave them the proof of how true their stories were, and it never ran out, always full of enough food to feed the entire planet, forever.

 

 


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Jack opened his eyes and found himself alone in the bed. He got up and quickly showered and dressed, trying to ignore the slight sting that the Doctor was no longer there. He then left the room, heading out to look for the Doctor.

He entered the control room, and found that they were landed. The planet’s name wasn’t one that he recognized, but from the information provided by the TARDIS, he saw it was a relatively small one, populated by a very friendly humanoid species.

Figuring that the Doctor went out to explore, Jack walked to the doors, exiting quickly, and turning around to pull the doors shut behind him. He then faced outwards again, and his breath caught in his throat.

Ash swirled through the air, the entire landscape blanketed in the gray substance. He noticed a few bodies lying on the ground, looking as if they had been torn to pieces, or caught in an explosion. There was no sound anywhere, and the silence was deafening.

Jack noticed a large commotion in the distance, and headed towards it, the body count growing larger the farther away from the TARDIS he got. As he walked, he noticed slight noises coming from the shapes. He also couldn’t help but notice that the bodies seemed to be getting…fresher, for lack of a better word. Some were still bleeding, the red a stark contrast to the never-ending ocean of gray.

He got close enough to finally make out the shapes, and he froze in his tracks, blinking a few times, before accepting what he saw in front of him.

There was the Doctor, holding a sharp, jagged edged blade, slicing into a pale skinned individual. The sounds he had heard were the person’s screams, and the Doctor’s laugh, horrible and twisted. More of the light-skinned people surrounded them, but they seemed to be immobilized, not even moving slightly.

Jack walked up to the back of the crowd, before pushing his way through.

“Doc?” he said quietly, his voice shaking badly.

“Jack! How great of you to join me! I was just having some fun with the locals! Weren’t you all having fun?” He said enthusiastically, glancing up from the limp body that had collapsed in front of him. The crowd surrounding him quickly nodded their heads.

“What are you doing?”

“Like I said, having some fun. Would you like to go next?” he asked, grabbing the blade by the bloody edge, and holding the handle out to him.

“I’m…fine, no thanks,” Jack said quickly, trying not to let the disgust show on his face.

“Come on Jack, I insist,” the Doctor grinned, his eyes betraying the laid back expression on his face, saying that he really didn’t have a choice.

Swallowing, Jack reached his hand out and grabbed the sword, closing his eyes as he did so.

“Which of them catches your fancy?” the Doctor asked, his tone still light-hearted. “How about her,” he pointed to one of the woman, who immediately started crying. “She seems to be sort of pretty. And blonde too! We can pretend she’s Rose. I know how much you despised her, despite how well you hid it.”

Deep down, Jack knew the Doctor had a point; he had hated Rose, and hated himself for that. She was so nice, and she was always kind to him, but the Doctor overlooked him for her. Even though he had those feelings however, he had never wanted to hurt her. He still didn’t.

“Kill her Jack,” the Doctor threatened, seeming to notice his hesitation.

Jack faced the young woman, who was staring up at him with eyes wide with fear.

“Please, please don’t,” the woman begged.

Jack glanced back at the Doctor, who nodded at him to continue, an almost hungry look on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Jack whispered to the woman, before drawing the sword across her throat. He tried to make it as quick and painless as possible, but he knew firsthand what it felt like to die that way. He also knew if he didn’t follow the Doctor’s orders, he’d go right back into the torture room, and as bad as this was, harming this woman, it’d be worse to be back there, to see just how bad the Doctor was. He couldn’t help the Doctor get better if he was back in that room.

Even as he told himself these things, his mind flicked back to the look on that innocent woman’s face.

Jack barely even registered the thump sound as the remaining crowd fell to the ground, dead. He barely noticed the Doctor’s hand on his shoulder, turning him back towards the TARDIS. When he finally recognized that he was once more in the TARDIS, the Doctor had already set a flight pattern, moving the ship into the time vortex.

There must have been a reason that the Doctor had chosen that planet, besides fun, some part of Jack knew that. His Doctor would never be so cruel, ever, but if he had been punishing those people, he would still have a good reason. Taking comfort in this fact, he cleared his throat, gaining the Doctor’s attention.

“So why that planet?” Jack tried to ask casual, although inside he was waiting for the Doctor’s confirmation that they had been evil in some shape or form.

“I told you already,” the Doctor answered, slight undertones of annoyance in his voice, “fun.”

“But why have fun on that planet on particular?” Jack pushed.

“Because most populations tend to fight back, and as much as I enjoy that, I felt like a more relaxing time. The population of Ciopdes is friendly; they wouldn’t attack a person even if their life depended on it, and in this case, it did. I chose Ciopdes because I knew they wouldn’t fight back,” the Doctor proclaimed, adding extra emphasis as if he was speaking to a child.

Jack couldn’t even form words after that. He had thought that maybe, _maybe,_ the Doctor wasn’t as bad as he thought he was. Maybe he had just been misunderstood, his methods just…extreme, but this…this was definitely not justice. There was no cause for what had just happened on that planet.

Jack looked up from the worn paneling on the walls of the TARDIS and saw the Doctor looking at him expectantly.

“Where are we going next, Doctor?” Jack asked, forcing the words out in a lightly cheerful tone. Doctor, because he could no longer think of that man in the nickname he always used for his Doctor. It had taken him this long to see it, he had been so _blinded_ by his image of the Doctor that just the _thought_ of him being evil was too much, but he could no longer deny it.  

He would never leave though, definitely not. Because no matter how much the Doctor changed, how evil he acted, underneath it all he was still the same man, even if it had all been reconstructed differently.  He knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t leave, not even if the Doctor began torturing him again. If there was the tiniest sliver of hope that the Doctor could become himself again, he couldn’t leave, and while that sliver was slowly shrinking for him, he knew it would never disappear completely, just like the foundations of a building never disappeared completely, even after a new building takes its place.

Jack blinked slowly, shoving all the thoughts out of his mind before he continued to get them muddled up. He realized that he missed the Doctor’s answer, but he didn’t care much anyways. He only hoped it’d be somewhere where the Doctor’s vengeance was well placed, rather than taken out on innocents once more.

The Doctor knew that Jack was beginning to question whether he was still the same person, not that he cared. Jack was like a puppy dog, even when kicked, he still came scampering back. Even with this knowledge, he didn’t miss the fact that Jack referred to him as ‘Doctor,’ rather than the ‘Doc’ that he had grown accustomed to. He found it curious that his long-since-buried emotions stirred slightly at that, but he shook it off. It was most likely out of confusion, not any pain he felt at Jack beginning to give up on him. Besides, he had heard Jack’s thoughts. He knew the immortal would never leave him, and he once more found it odd how he was slightly comforted by that fact.

Shaking his head, he continued to fly the TARDIS. He was taking Jack to the Planet of the Ood. He wanted to check in to see how much work they had done since he was last there with Donna, so very long ago.

He also knew it was rather beautiful, and thought Jack might appreciate it slightly. Not that he overly cared about Jack’s feelings at all. He just found that Jack was easier to deal with when he was happy… People could be both destroyed and happy at the same time!

The TARDIS lurched to its stop, and the Doctor grabbed his coat and headed towards the doors. “You might want to grab your coat too Jack,” he called over his shoulder, stepping out into the snowy atmosphere. Jack followed seconds later, still shrugging his greatcoat over his shoulders, before stopping and gaping at the sight in front of him.

The Doctor couldn’t tell exactly how long it had been since he was last here, but he knew it wasn’t long enough for what he saw before him; an entire city in the snow. He watched as one of the Ood, Ood Sigma, walked up to them.

“You will come with me,” he said, before turning and walking away.

The Doctor followed, and Jack after him, before he stopped at the sight of the much better view of the city.

“Magnificent,” he grinned widely, admiring the twisting spires and the overall beauty of what they had made. “How long has it been for you again?” he turned back to the Ood.

“100 years,” he replied.

“Then we’ve got a problem,” the Doctor paused.

“A problem?” Jack prompted.

“All this is way too fast,” he glanced at the Ood. “Something’s accelerating your species, way beyond normal.”

“And the mind of the Ood is troubled,” Ood Sigma said.

“Why? What’s happened?”

“Every night, Doctor. Every night, we have bad dreams.”

The Doctor looked at Ood Sigma, then back out at the city, and knew something was very, very wrong. The only question was what. What was the cause of the Ood’s acceleration, and the nightmares they were having? As a psychic species, he knew that they could be picking up a signal from anywhere in the universe, which meant there was some great evil emerging somewhere. He also knew that the Ood would expect him to fix everything, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that. Who cared if there was an evil arriving? Let someone else take care of it for once!

Curiosity got the better of him however, and with a glance back at Jack, he followed Ood Sigma down the mountain and into one of the caves.

_“Returning, returning, it is slowly returning, through the dark and the fire and the blood, always returning, returning to this world. It is returning, and he is returning, and they are returning, but too late, too late, far too late,”_ a chanting voice greeted him, echoing within his mind.

_“He has come,”_ Another whispered.

“Sit with the Elder of the Ood and share the dreaming,” Ood Sigma motions for the Doctor to sit, stopping Jack from following.

“So,” he says, sitting down in their circle. “Hello.”

_“You will join, you will join, you will join, you will join, you will join, you will join, you will join,”_ chanting voices filled his mind as he joined hands with them.

And then he was sucked into an image that made his eyes widen with a shock of emotions. The Master… The Doctor yanked his hands back in shock.

_“He comes to us, every night. I think all the peoples of the universe dream of him now,”_ one of the Ood spoke in his mind.

“That man is dead,” the Doctor forced the words out, narrowing his eyes.

“Who?” Jack questioned.

_“There is yet more,”_ the Ood said, ignoring Jack’s comment. _“Join us,”_ they took his hands once more. _”Events are taking shape, so many years ago, and yet changing the now. There is a man…so scared.”_

They showed him an image with the backdrop of the Master’s laughing. “Wilfred! Is he alright?” he questioned. “What about Donna? Is she safe?”

_“The lines of convergence are being drawn across the Earth, even now. The king is in his counting house.”_

The Doctor caught a flash of two people with dark skin, seeming to be father and daughter and very well off. “I don’t know who they are,” he said.

_“And there is another. The most lonely of all, lost and forgotten.”_

He sees Lucy Saxon crying in a prison cell. “The Master’s wife,” he whispered.

“What?” Jack’s voice rang out.

“We see so much, but understand little. The woman in the cage, who is she?” Ood Sigma questioned.

“She was…It wasn’t her fault, she…” he struggled to come up with an apt description. “The Master, he’s a Time Lord, like me… I can show you,” he grabs their hands again, and shows them what happened on the Valiant. “The Master took the name of Saxon. He married a human, a woman called Lucy. And then he corrupted her. She stood at his side while he conquered the Earth. I reversed everything he’d done, so it never even happened. But Lucy Saxon remembered.” He showed them Lucy shooting the Master, and then him burning the body on the funeral pyre. “I held him in my arms. I burnt his body! The Master is dead!” he almost shouted the last sentence.

_“And yet, you did not see…”_

The scene continued, him burning the body, and then… “What’s that?” he questioned…A woman picking up the Master’s ring.

“Part of him survived!” he gasped, trying to stand. “I have to go!” the Ood held firmly to his hands.

_“But something more is happening, Doctor. The Master is part of a greater design, because a shadow is falling over creation. Something is stirring in the dark.”_ He looks up, and his eyes are red. _“The Ood have gained this power to see through time because time is bleeding.”_ The Doctor looked around and realized the full circle of Ood had red eyes. _“Shapes of things once lost are moving through the veil. And these events from years ago threaten to destroy the future. And the present and the past.”_

“What do you mean?”

_“This is what we have seen, Doctor. The darkness heralds only one thing, the end of time itself.”_

“We have to go, now,” he looked at Jack, before sprinting out of the cave.

_“Events that have happened are happening now.”_

The Doctor vaguely hears Jack following, calling out and asking him what happened back there, but he doesn’t care. His mind is focused on other things…like the Master. He thought back to the Ood’s words… ‘Returning. He is returning.’ Did they mean the Master?

The Doctor flicked open the doors of the TARDIS, moving directly over to the chair and sitting in it as he became lost in his thoughts.

“What happened back there?” Jack asked as he finally caught up and entered the spaceship after him.

“We’re going back to Earth for a while,” he said, ignoring Jack’s question. With a snap of his fingers, the doors slammed shut, and he moved to the controls, operating the machine with a face blank of emotions while his thoughts were still a million light years away.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of you noticed, because Jack himself didn't, but the planet at the very beginning, Ciopdes, was mentioned before. When Jack and the Doctor visit the planet with the transferable consciousness... The planet where they would finally be stopped was Ciopdes, was the residents would band together and face the evil confronting them.  
> Jack didn't notice, but don't think it slipped the Doctor's mind...that's why it's okay for him to destroy it; because he's already destroyed the timeline where those events happened. In his mind, anyways.


	17. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (and those following it) contains spoilers for the "End of Time" episode arc.

Chapter 16

Jack fell against the railing as the TARDIS landed, and was still regaining his balance as the Doctor rushed to the door.

“Stay here,” he growled, pointing a finger at Jack, before rushing out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Jack just nodded, even though the Time Lord was already gone. He sat down in the chair, lost in his thoughts. On the Planet of the Ood, the Doctor had acted so strange when sitting in the circle with them. He wished he could have heard the words that had been exchanged, rather than just the Doctor’s side of the conversation. From what he had gathered though, the panic was something about the Master, like he was back. He hoped not…If the Master was back, and the Doctor met up with him again… There was a chance that the Master would take away what little good, if any, remained inside the Doctor.

His mind unconsciously flicked back to the cave, just after the Doctor had run out. Ood Sigma had grabbed his arm and stopped him from immediately following.

“Remember, that which is lost _will_ find its way back. And usually, it is closer than you think,” the Ood had said.

Now that he thought about the words, now that he actually stopped to think about them, he wondered what they had been for. It had seemed as if the Ood were friends with the Doctor. That meant they must have met before the Doctor had…changed. And he trusted their word…they told him the Master was back, even though he died right in front of him, and he immediately ran off.

That meant that what they said…it could be taken as truth… They told him what was lost came back… Could they have been talking about the Doctor? That he was going to find his way back? And he said it was closer that you think…did that mean…the Doctor was almost back? Back to being himself?

If that was true, it meant that he was right about helping the Doctor by staying. It also meant that it wouldn’t take much more to help him completely. But if the Master really was back…he could change everything. If the Doctor ran into the Master while he was like this…It could ruin everything.

The Doctor ran towards the banging noise, and caught sight of the Master. The instant their eyes met, the Master let out a roar, before springing into the air, landing far away. The Doctor chased after him, and watched as his face changed to something skeletal.

“Let me help you! You’re burning up your own life force!” He shouted at the retreating figure.

The Master just continued running.

The Doctor went to follow, when he was stopped by an old man.

“Oh my gosh, Doctor, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” The old man said.

The Doctor ignored this comment. “Out of my way!” he pushed him back, climbing up one of the piles of girders to look for the Master.

“Did we do it? Is that him?” Another elderly male voice sounded.

“Tall and thin, big brown coat,” said another voice.

“The Silver Cloak! It worked! ‘Cause Wilf phoned Netty, who phoned June, and her sister lives opposite Broadfell, and she saw the police box, and her neighbor saw this man heading east,” a female voice said now.

The Doctor growled in frustration, banging his hand on the beams, before hopping down. The Master was already gone. It was then that he realized he was surrounded by humans, and was confused until he recognized Wilfred. Donna’s grandfather, Wilfred. He mentally sighed, with another growl of frustration. That was just great. Now he was going to have to pretend once more, to be the stupid goody-two-shoes man he was before. He had to think back, and remember his last conversation with Wilfred, and what he’d been so concerned with back then.

“Wilfred? Have you told them who I am? You promised!” He said, adding the false layers of emotion to his tone.

“No, I just said you were a doctor, that’s all. And might I say, sir, it is an honor to see you again,” Wilfred said quickly, saluting.

Attempting to keep the annoyance off his face, he gave Wilfred a small smile, and returned the salute with two fingers to his forehead.

“Oh, but you never said he was a looker! He’s gorgeous, take a photo!” One of the old women said, shoving a camera into one of the men’s hands.

Many of them blathered on about various things, and the Doctor ignored them as he searched for the Master’s mental signature.

“I’m Minnie. Minnie the Menace. It’s a long time since I had a photo with a handsome man,” the same old woman said, placing herself next to him and wrapping her arm around his waist. Everyone else moved around them.

The Doctor resisted the urge to just stop all their hearts, knowing it would just make things more difficult for him in the long run.

“Just get off him, leave him alone, will you?” Wilfred said.

“Hush, you old misery. Come on, Doctor, give us a smile,” Minnie said.

The elderly people muttered and continued on for a bit longer, until he finally grew overly annoyed once more.

“I’m really kind of busy, you know?” he interjected.

“Oh it won’t take a tick, keep smiling,” Minnie said. She then slid her hand down from his waist and pinched his bottom.

“Is that you _hand_ , Minnie?” He jerked away from her, restraining himself from killing her.

“Good boy,” she laughed, patting him.

After the whole picture fiasco, Wilfred dragged him back to a bus, and made him board along with the rest of the old folks blabbering on and on about how they needed to talk, but not here…

He had forgotten how annoying humans could be. Jack didn’t count; he had long since been trained not to do the things that would annoy him. Wilfred on the other hand… The Doctor tried not to scowl as he waved goodbye to the other people on the bus, before dragging him to a café.

“What’s so special about this place? We passed 15 cafés on the way!”

“Yeah,” Wilfred just responded, entering the café.

The Doctor sat and watched him as he babbled on about past victories and times they had met.

“Who are you?” the Doctor interrupted.

“I’m Wilfred Mott.”

“No. People have waited hundreds of years to find me and then you manage it in a few hours.”

“Well, I’m just lucky I suppose.”

“No…we keep on meeting, Wilf. Over and over again, like something’s still connecting us.”

“Yeah, but what’s so important about me?” Wilfred asked.

“Exactly. Why you?” He studied Wilfred’s figure, and he saw the timelines twisting around him. He examined one in particular, and saw their conversation going a different way, with a version of him that was still weak, in a universe where Adelaide Brooke killed herself after Mars. He saw as the other him, with all those useless emotions, cried to Wilfred about how he was going to die, and the prophecy that had been revealed to him so very long ago. ‘He will knock four times,’ and then he was meant to die. A slight smirk stretched across his lips at that memory. He’d been so worried about it…

“Hmm,” Wilfred’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.

“What?” He followed Wilfred’s gaze, and saw Donna outside. Oh.

“I’m sorry, but I had to. Look, can’t you make her better?”

“Stop it,” he growled.

“No, but you’re so clever. Can’t you bring her memory back? Look, just go to her now, go on. Just run across the street. Go up and say hello,” Wilfred started pushing at him.

“If she ever remembers me, her mind will burn, and she will die,” he said, _and that’s one thing he wasn’t willing to let happen_. He left the words unspoken. He watched out the window as Donna yelled at a meter attendant.

“She’s not changed.”

“Nah. Oh, there he is! Shawn Temple; they’re engaged. Getting married in the spring,” Wilfred said.

“Another wedding.”

“Yeah.”

The Doctor finished exchanging pleasantries with Wilfred, realizing that he really didn’t know anything that was going to help him, ignoring his question of who he was traveling with now. Instead, he just stood, and said, “Goodbye, Wilfred. It was nice seeing you again.”

He then left the café, too quickly for Wilfred to follow. Instead, he went to the warehouse where he had last sensed the Master’s presence.

It was dark by the time he reached the area, and he followed the signals until he saw the Master. The Master shot an energy bolt at him, and then another, both missing their intended target.

“Stop this, now,” the Doctor demanded, as he prepared to send another.

The Master just grinned manically.

The Doctor sighed, and waved his hand to the side after taking a quick dip into the Master’s mind, and the bolt flung away wildly.

The Master looked at him, his face masked with shock and his eyes wide.

“The rules have changed since we last met,” the Doctor said.

“Oh,” the Master paused, “ _oh_ ,” he laughed.

“Your resurrection went wrong. That energy…your body’s ripped open. Now you’re killing yourself.”

“And that’s human Christmas out there! They eat so much…All that roasting meat, cakes and red wine. Hot, fat, blood food. Pots, plates of meat and flesh and grease and juice. And baking, burnt, sticky hot skin. Hot! It’s so hot!”

“Stop it.”

“Slice! Slice! It’s mine! Mine, mine, mine! It’s mine! Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!”

“Stop,” the Doctor demanded, entering the Master’s mind and forcing him to take a deep breath to regain control, while calming down the other centers that were causing the break down. He froze, along with the Master.

“You’re in my head,” the Master accused, but the Doctor wasn’t listening to him.

“The drums…they’re real?” he gasped.

The Master cocked his head to the side. “You can hear them?”

“But it’s just your insanity!”

“It’s real…It’s _real_ ,” he laughed, standing up from his crouched position. “All these years you thought I was mad, but something is calling me. What is it? What is it?”

“Well before you do something really insane, you need to listen. I can help you. You need to let me help you, and then we can find the drums together.”

“And what? Have me become your _prisoner_? I told you before, Doctor. I will not become your pet as you run around saving the universe.”

“And I told you: the rules have changed. I’m not the savior anymore. What’s the point of just _looking_ at the universe, when you can _own_ it? All those planets and stars, just waiting to be taken over.”

The Master examined him again. “I don’t believe you.”

Just then, a beam of light fell on the Master, and the whirring blades of a helicopter could be heard. Another beam shone on the Doctor. Lines were thrown down, and men soon followed. They tranquilized the Master and began to load his body into the helicopter. More soldiers shot at the Doctor’s feet, but he disposed of them quickly, letting their dead bodies fall to the ground.

The helicopter started to move away with the two soldiers and the Master still dangling from the cords, and the Doctor cursed. If he took out the men, there was a chance that the Master could get hurt. Same thing if he forced the pilot to land.

He growled, kicking one of the scraps of metal that lay abandoned in the gravel. It skittered several yards, before hitting a metal pipe, denting it.

Now…Now he wasn’t sure _what_ to do—but wait! The man who had a role in all of this! The Ood had a reason to show him the old man, so it must have been important, along with the two others. A plan began to form in his mind, and he stormed back to the TARDIS. He would get the Master back, but first, he’d visit an old friend—Wilfred Mott himself.

 

 


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The Doctor banged the door shut on the TARDIS ignoring Jack completely as he plotted course for the Noble household. He slammed down on the controls, forcing the TARDIS faster and faster, before pausing slightly and resetting course for the street outside the house, the next day. He didn’t want Donna getting hurt because she saw him or the blue police box.

The Doctor waved a finger at Jack, warning him to stay, as he left the TARDIS again, unfazed by the slightly crashed landing. He then stormed outside, and threw a rock at the window of the house where he felt Wilfred’s presence, before returning to the street by the TARDIS.

Wilfred ran out of the house, a flustered expression on his face.

“I lost him, I was unconscious. He’s still on Earth, I can sense him, but he’s too far away,” he ground out, acting frantic in an effort to speed up Wilfred’s thought process.

“Listen, you can’t park there, what if Donna sees it?” Wilfred replied.

“Look, you’re the only one, Wilf. The only connection I can think of. You’re involved. If I could work out how…Tell me, have you seen anything? I don’t know. Anything strange, anything odd?” he demanded.

“Well, there was…” he trailed off.

“What? What is it? Tell me.”

“Well there was…No, it’s nothing.”

“Think, think, think! Maybe something out of the blue. Connected to your life, something!”

“Well Donna was a bit strange. She had a funny moment this morning, all because of that book.”

“What book?” he said forcefully.

Wilfred headed back towards the house, and the Doctor followed him into the back garden, and a moment later, Wilfred returned with a book in his hand, and only hesitated for a moment before handing it over.

“Here you are, his name is Joshua Naismith.”

The Doctor froze when he saw the man.

“That’s the man. I was shown him, by the Ood.”

“By the what?

“By the Ood.”

“What’s the Ood?”

“They’re just Ood. But it’s all part of the convergence, maybe…maybe touching Donna’s subconscious. Oh, she’s still fighting for us, even now. The Doctor-Donna,” he smiled slightly. Donna never let him down.

“Dad, what are you up to?” Donna’s mom stepped outside, before seeing the Doctor. “You! Get out of here!”

“Merry Christmas,” he responded.

“Merry Christmas,” she said curtly. “But she can’t see you! What if she remembers?”

“Mum, where are those tweezers?” Donna called from inside.

“Go!” Sylvia demanded.

“I’m going,” the Doctor said, turning around and heading back towards the TARDIS.

“Yeah, me too,” Wilfred followed.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” she followed him.

“Mum? Gramps?” Donna stuck her head outside.

“Dad, I’m warning you…”

“Bye, see you later,” he waved.

“Stay right where you are!”

“You can’t come with me,” the Doctor told him as he unlocked the doors.

“You’re not leaving me with her!”

“Fair enough,” he replied, allowing him to follow him into the TARDIS, before shutting the doors and dematerializing the TARDIS. “Wilfred, this is Jack. Jack, Wilfred,” he motioned quickly while running around the TARDIS controls. They nod/wave to each other.  “Naismith!” he hands the book to Jack. “If I can track him down…” he glanced over at Wilfred, slightly amused. It had been a while since he’d had that reaction. “Ah, right. Yes… Bigger on the inside. Do you like her?”

“I thought it’d be cleaner,” Wilfred responded

“Oi! Cleaner? I could take you back home, right now!” he responded, as Jack laughed.

“Listen, Doctor, if this is a time machine, that man you’re chasing, why can’t you just pop back to yesterday and catch him?”

“I can’t go back in my own timeline, I have to stay relative to the Master within the causal nexus, understand?”

“Not a word,” Wilfred replied.

“Welcome aboard,” he shook Wilfred’s hand, with a quick glance at Jack to see his eyes widen at the name, but he stayed silent.

“Thank you,” Wilfred replied.

Jack followed the Doctor outside and into a stable, Wilfred right behind him.

“We’ve moved! We’ve really moved!” Wilfred said, his eyes wide.

“You should stay here,” the Doctor said darkly.

Wilfred missed his tone, because he chuckled, “not bloody likely.”

“And don’t swear. Hold on,” the Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at the TARDIS, and it dematerialized. “Just a second out of sync,” he said cheerfully, but Jack now recognized it as fake. Wilfred was fooled however. “Don’t want the Master finding the TARDIS, that’s the last thing we need.”

The group slowly made their way along the building, pausing when they see two guards through an archway.

“The book said he’s a billionaire. He’s got his own private army,” Wilfred whispered.

“Down here,” the Doctor responded, before sonicing a small door and leading the way inside the cellar of the mansion.

“…man’s a miracle. All the systems are slotting back into place. The shatterthreads have harmonized and the multiple overshots have triplicated,” a female voice said.

The Doctor and jack peered around the corner, Wilfred peeking out beneath them.

“Nice gate!” the Doctor smiled, stepping out, Jack following immediately.

“Hello,” Wilfred waved.

“Look, don’t even think about calling security or anything, or I’ll tell them you’re wearing a Shimmer, cause I reckon anyone wearing a Shimmer doesn’t want the Shimmer to be noticed or they wouldn’t be wearing the Shimmer in the first place,” the Doctor said in that convincing but fake cheerful tone of his.

“I’m sorry, what’s a _Shimmer_?” She copied his over-pronunciation of the word.

“Shimmer,” he replied, flicking the button on the sonic screwdriver.

“Oh, my Lord. She’s a cactus!” Wilfred gasped in surprise as she glared.

“Captain Jack Harkness, and who are you?” Jack smiled at her.

“Miss Addams?” A male voice came over the radio.

“Jack…” Something on the computer started flashing, and the Doctor stared at the screens. “He’s got it working, but what is it?”

“What’s working? What are you doing here?” The same male voice from the radio said as he entered the room.

“Shimmer!” The Doctor exclaimed, flicking the sonic and turning it off without even looking at him. “Now tell me, quickly, what’s going on, the Master, Harold Saxon? Skeletor, whatever you’re calling him, what’s he doing up there?”

“Hello, Captain Jack—”

“Not the time,” he was cut off by the Doctor, who sounded quite a bit angrier than usual. “Now he’s done something, but what?”

“But I checked the readings. He’s done good work. It’s operational.”

“Who are you? I met someone like you, but he was little and red,” the Doctor seemed to finally see the aliens.

“No, that’s a Zocci, completely different,” the female said.

“We’re not Zocci, we’re Vinvocci. Completely different,” the guy said.

“And the gate is Vinvocci. We’re a salvage team. We picked up a signal when the humans reactivated it, and as soon as it’s working, we can transport it to the ship.”

“But what does it do?”

“Well, it mends, it’s as simple as that. It’s a medical device to repair the body, it makes people better,” the male said.

“No, there’s got to be more,” the Doctor said, checking the equipment. “Every single warning says the Master’s going to do something colossal.”

“So that thing’s a sickbed, yes?” Wilfred asked.

“More or less.”

“Well, pardon me for asking, but why is it so big?”

“Oh, good question. Why’s it so big?” the Doctor asked.

“It doesn’t just mend one person at a time,” she scoffed.

“That would be ridiculous,” the male said.

“It mends whole planets.”

“It does what?” the Doctor exclaimed.

“It transmits the medical template across the entire population.”

The Doctor sprinted from the room, Jack hot on his heels, and Wilfred trailing behind uncertainly. They went from the basement up to the main floor and to the lab, skidding around corners.

“Turn off the gate, now,” the Doctor demanded.

Jack looked around the room and saw varying states of pleasure from success, shock from their arrival, and fear as they took in the cloud of anger surrounding the Doctor.

“At arms!” a man shouted.

“No, no, no you idiots! Don’t let him near that device!” the Doctor shouted.

“Oh, like that was ever going to happen…” In a burst of energy, the Master removed the straightjacket and leapt into the center of the machine with a scream. “Homeless, was I? Destitute and dying? Well, look at me now.”

“Deactivate it. All of you stupid apes, turn the whole thing off!” the Doctor screamed.

Nobody moved. Jack watched as Naismith and the girl next to him started shaking their heads as the Master laughed. Jack’s vision started to blink in and out.

“He’s…inside my head,” Naismith stuttered.

“Get out of there!” the Doctor span towards the Master, who in turn shot a bolt of energy at the Doctor who was still too shocked to react, and fell to the floor.

“Doctor, Doctor!” Wilfred puffed, finally catching up. “There’s this face…”

“What is it? What can you see?”

“Well, it’s him. I can see him! I can see his face,” he pointed at the laughing Master.

“Doctor, I see it too,” Jack growled in frustration, grinding his eyes shut and trying to banish the presence from his mind.

The words from the television filter in and out of his hearing, something about wrong, and the President.

“I can’t turn it off,” the Doctor growled in frustration.

“That’s because I locked it, idiot,” the Master replied.

As everything else blurred in and out, the two Time Lord’s voices remained strong and they pierced through the veil enough for him to catch a grip again.

“What can I do?” he ground out.

“Wilfred. Get inside with him, and get him out,” he pointed at the technician.

Jack nodded, dragging Wilfred into one booth while the Doctor stepped into the other.

“Just need to filter the levels…” he muttered.

Jack’s vision cleared, just as Wilfred let out an exclamation, “I can see again! He’s gone!”

“Radiation shielding. Now, press the button, let me out.”

Jack hurried to press it as Wilfred started fussing again, and the Doctor rushed out.

“50 seconds and counting,” the Master grinned.

“To what?” the Doctor asked.

“Oh, you’re going to love this.”

Jack watched as the Doctor continued to just watch the Master, not making any other move to stop him.

Next to him, Wilfred’s phone rings, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a revolver, before staring wide-eyed at Jack, and shoving it back in, grabbing the desired object instead. Maybe he needed to give this old man more credit.

“Hello? Oh, God. Donna?” Wilfred asked, sounding worried. There was a pause before he said, “But wait a minute, I mean, what about you? Can’t you see anything?”

A woman who didn’t see anything? And then he realized why the name was familiar, and why he thought Wilfred looked like someone when they first met. Donna Noble. The Doctor’s Donna Noble, which made this Wilfred Mott…  His respect for the man instantly doubled.

His phone beeped again, and he let out a frustrated groan before answering, “Not now Winston!”

“What is it?” the Doctor asked curiously. “Hypnotism? Mind Control? You’re grafting your thoughts inside them, is that it?” Jack ground his teeth as he realized how unworried he seemed. Of course he wasn’t going to stop the Master, he didn’t save people anymore. But then…why’d he save him and Wilfred?

“Oh, that’s way too easy. No, no, no, they’re not gonna think like me. They’re gonna _become_ me. A-a-a-and, zero!” the Master grinned psychotically again, as a burst of energy exploded outwards from the gate, spreading across the world.

Everyone in the room, excluding the two Time Lords, Wilfred, and Jack, started shaking their heads back and forth at impossible speeds, flickers of something coming through.

“Oh, you couldn’t have,” the Doctor said, sounding as if he was in awe.

“What is it?” Wilfred cried out, before listening intently to his phone. “Doctor! She’s starting to remember…” he turned to the Master. “What is it? What have you done, you monster?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you talking to me?” the Master in the gate asked.

“Or to me?”

“Or to me?”

“Or to me?”

“Or to us?”

“Breaking news, I’m everyone! And everyone in the world is me!”

The Master went around the room, speaking from different versions of himself, and ending with who used to be the newscaster on the television.

“The human race was always you favorite, Doctor. But now, there is no human race. There is only…the Master race,” he grinned manically.

“Oh, that’s brilliant. Just fantastic, really,” the Doctor returned the smile with true enthusiasm. The evil glint in his eyes was unmistakable.

 

 


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“What?” the original Master demanded, a look of utter confusion on his face.

The Doctor’s smile remained on his face, “Like I said, that is truly brilliant. Very clever, I wish I could have thought of it myself…I might steal that idea later on, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re not supposed to be impressed,” he gaped.

“Why not? I can’t congratulate an old friend on a victory over an insignificantly primitive planet such as this one?” the Doctor said nonchalantly.

“What’s going on?” Wilfred breathed to Jack in the booth, his voice barely above a whisper.

Jack just shook his head, already knowing what was coming next. He almost felt sorry for Wilfred, for finding out the Doctor was no longer the man he once was, but brushed the emotion off. He couldn’t afford to feel that way, not if he wanted to remain with the Doctor when he took the Master onboard, as he knew would happen.

“You’re not supposed to congratulate me! You’re the good guy! You’re supposed to be fussing about how I’ll never get away with it, how you’re going to stop me, to _save_ me!” The Master was saying. Well…it was more like yelling. He was getting hysterical, which made Jack glad he was behind the glass. He really didn’t feel like being on the receiving end of the Master’s anger once more; he’d had enough of that during the year that never was.

“Like I told you earlier, things have changed since we last met. You of all people should know that things can change, just like that,” the Doctor snapped his fingers together. “If you had done the slightest bit of research into the recent events, heck, if you even checked the timelines, you’d have seen it. It’s kind of hard to miss! But while I have changed, for the better, I might add, you remain the same: always too wrapped up in the next psychotic scheme to even try to see the bigger picture. But hey, I don’t have a problem with that. Good on you, with sticking to the same basic plan every time, never changing or altering course…your persistence is admirable.”

The Master sneered at the Doctor. “I’ve had enough of this. You,” he pointed to a group of the former-soldiers, “secure the prisoner.”

Jack watched with baited breath, but to his surprise, nothing happened.

The Master seemed equally shocked, and also slightly angry. “I said _secure the prisoner_!” he shouted at his clones.

“Ah, but they don’t answer to you,” the Doctor gave him a sly smile.

“What are you talking about? They _are_ me!”

“No. They appear to be you, but appearances can be deceiving. Like Wilfred, the kind old man, secretly carrying a gun. Why would a kind old man do that?” he turned towards the box, and Wilfred blushed. “Or Jack, a seemingly normal human, who is destined to live forever…but he looks ordinary on the outside. Now these clones of yours, because they aren’t you, not really, answer to _me_.”

“No,” the Master growled.

“While you were busy _monologuing_ ,” he spat the word out, “classic villain mistake I might add, and one you make every time we meet, but now I’m getting off topic…While you were laying out your whole plan, making sure we all knew how doomed we were, I entered that tiny little brain of yours, and placed a temporary overlay of my own consciousness in your mind that would be activated by none other than a snap. Well, my snap. The snap that I snapped while you were busy letting me talk. I don’t get why everybody lets me do that, do you Jack?” the Doctor turned towards him, and Jack shook his head. “Speaking of which, you,” he pointed to a random clone, “go let those two out.”

The clone entered the other booth, and pressed the button to release them from the locked box. Jack immediately moved to the Doctor’s side, while Wilfred just stepped out nervously.

“Anyways, where was I? Oh, yes…My consciousness in yours, activated by the snap, in every model by the way, not just the ones in here, so now they might all look like you, but they’re actually me. After the copying was finished, I removed my presence from you; I wanted to keep you the same. You are the original of course, and with time, you might be able to improve on your planning skills, and learn to see the bigger picture for once.”

The Master remained silent, glowering at the Doctor, his eyes unreadable, but the Doctor must have read something off him, because he let out an exasperated sigh.

“Yes, I really am the Doctor, not some imposter. You recognized my presence in your mind earlier, so you know I’m not lying. And no, I really don’t care that the only human left on this planet is Wilfred, because Jack really doesn’t count much, sorry Jack,” he added in the last couple words as an afterthought. “And yes, that was a true statement. I honestly don’t know why I spent so many years defending these stupid apes…in the end they always turn back to the same tune. Blah, blah, blah, money, blah, blah, blah, power, and on and on, the endless cycle of death and destruction that they spread out amongst the universe. However, destroying them now, cutting off the line in this year would create a further paradox of our friend Jack here, not that I’m overly bothered. If the reapers show up, I can just knock them out of commission.”

“Get out of my head,” the Master growled, finally speaking after a long pause. “Get out, get out, get out!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The noise echoed for a moment, before falling back into silence that was shattered a moment later, by a mobile ringing.

“That’s a phone,” the Master gaped.

“Yeah,” Wilfred said, searching his pockets. “Let me just turn it off…”

“But that means someone’s calling you…” the Master said.

“Yeah,” Wilfred muttered, still looking for his phone.

“But everyone is me. Sort of…So how is someone calling you?”

“Donna?” the Doctor answered the cellphone in his hand.

“You’re not my Gramps,” her voice crackled over the speaker. The Doctor must have put it on speakerphone.

“It’s okay Donna sweetheart,” Wilfred called out.

“Gramps? Everyone’s changed! I ran out!”

“Why didn’t she change?” the Master demanded.

“The thing the Doctor did…the metacrisis,” Wilfred muttered.

“What was that?” Donna demanded, before letting out a pained groan. “My head, it just keeps getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter!” She screamed, and the line went dead.

“Donna! Donna!” Wilfred called out, over and over, but she remained unresponsive. He turned his head to the Doctor. “What happened to her?”

“It’s alright. You didn’t think I’d leave my best friend unprotected? A couple clones are bringing her to the mansion now; she’s fine, just sleeping. And now that there are this many of me, that much brain power, I can cure her. Memories and all. She’ll be fine,” he smiled brightly.

“Still messing with Earth Girls,” the Master sneered.

“I’d mind my manners if I were you. She’s half Time Lord,” the Doctor said to the Master, his tone light, but the threat it held was still obvious. The other clones occupying the room all turned to glare at the Master, who held up his hands in a sign of defeat, clearly noticing he was outnumbered.

“So what now then? What’s the rest of your plan, since you so rudely high jacked mine?”

“I’m just making it up as I go along, same as always. Things tend to work out that way.”

“And you complained about me,” the Master scoffed.

“Who always wins?” the Doctor replied.

“You,” the Master acquiesced begrudgingly, scowling again.

Jack noticed how his moods seemed to fluctuate, along with the slight change in his appearance, the bleached blonde hair. He wondered if his mood swings had something to do with the way he was brought back…he’d heard the Doctor grumbling something about it between flights.

“So…Where’s your TARDIS, Doctor?” the Master asked, failing to act nonchalant.

“Yeah, still not that stupid. You’re staying right there. And you two!” he pointed at two of guards who still had their visors down. “Don’t you think about doing anything, because he might be stupid, but I notice everything, all the little things that work together to form the bigger picture, and I know you’re not the right height, which makes you the Vinvocci. I highly recommend that you teleport back to that ship of yours, and forget about the salvage. Say the humans broke it, whatever, just leave now, and I’ll ignore you, but you leave the gate.”

The two figures stiffened, and then looked at each other before appearing to come to a mutual decision as they fled the room.

“That’s better! Now then, Jack, will you get the door? Donna’s here,” the Doctor smiled.

Jack opened the door to the room, and four clones entered, Donna’s body supported between them. They laid her gingerly on the floor in front of the Doctor.

“Now let’s think…All of us together…a method that will allow for the Time Lord consciousness within her to be sustained within that fragile human shell… Right now, the only thing protecting her is that fact that the memories relating to anything abnormal are blocked, but we cannot allow her to suffer without those memories…”

One of the clones started blabbing on about brain structures or something, but Jack couldn’t follow the words.

“No, that wouldn’t fix the problem that her body can’t contain all that information…” the Doctor replied.

There were several more suggestions, none of which Jack understood, but the Doctor shot them all down.

“Doctor?” Jack asked, only slightly uncomforted by the Doctor’s eyes that now turned to him. “You said the problem was that her human body can’t contain the Time Lord part, right? Well what about the chameleon arch? Couldn’t you just use it to turn her into a Time Lord? Time Lady?”

“That…could actually work…” the Doctor raced off, techno-babbling once more, explaining how he could adjust the machine so that she could retain her memories, and remember the things that he had taken from her mind when he realized what was happening to her. He seemed beyond excited, and once more, Jack was shocked by how much he seemed like himself. The Doctor continued speaking, yelling so that they could hear him as he ran outside to retrieve the TARDIS, and continuing to talk as he materialized it in the room. “It’s going to work!” he finished, with another huge smile.

The Doctor then got the clones to carry Donna into the TARDIS, where he hooked her into the altered machine, and started it up. Several of her screams echoed out into the room, and Wilfred started to run towards the open doors, but Jack grabbed him and held him back.

“Get off me! Donna’s hurting in there!” he tried to push Jack off, but he wasn’t strong enough.

“You can’t interrupt this…It will only make things worse. The Doctor’s going to fix her,” Jack responded, trying to calm him down.

“And who’s going to fix him?”

“What?” Jack froze.

“You heard me! I have eyes you know! That’s not the same man, I’m not stupid,” Wilfred exclaimed.

“I…I’m working on it,” Jack stuttered out.

“And what about you, young man? I see the way you look at him…All that adoration, but you also look like you’re scared he’s going to hit you.”

“I’m older than I look,” Jack said, unable to address the other parts of Wilfred’s statement.

“You and him both,” Wilfred laughed a little, before shrugging off Jack’s hands.

“I am working on it…he’s getting better Wilfred…If you’d seen him before…” Jack couldn’t help the involuntary shudder that ran through him.

Wilfred placed a kind hand on Jack’s arm, and Jack shifted his gaze, not able to look Wilfred in the face anymore. Instead, he saw the Master, listening in on the words that had been exchanged, an intrigued expression on his face.

The screams cut out, replaced by the Doctor’s kind voice saying, “Donna? How do you feel?”

There was a short pause, and then the very obvious sound of someone being slapped.

 

 


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

The first thing that entered the Doctor’s mind when Donna slapped him was complete and utter shock, and it had been a long time since he’d felt that. He honestly didn’t know how to react to the fiery redhead in front of him. He didn’t know what their reunion was going to be like, but he hadn’t expected this. And then his senses were overwhelmed by the combination of new minds entering the room, and Donna going off on a long-winded rant.

“Oi! Spaceman! You thought you could Martian-Mind me without me caring? But no, it’s all ‘save her life’ blah, blah, blah! You didn’t save me; you saved some other woman, because that wasn’t me, not anymore! Did you think I’d thank you for burying this part of me! Because I’m not gonna, you can forget about it! And next time think twice before messing with me! Oh, don’t look so shocked…you had to have known this was coming…you promised me forever, remember? Of course now I suppose you can keep that promise…Is that a second heart I feel? Wow…I don’t know how I survived with only one! I’ve got so much more energy! Is this why you’re so manic all the time? I could get used to this…think of how much more running we could do!” Donna managed to spew out in less than thirty seconds.

“Donna, darling…are you alright?” Wilfred’s voice broke the startled silence.

“Gramps! I’m wonderful, honestly never felt better; you gotta take one of these for a test-drive! Everyone should have two hearts, it just feels so _wonderful_!”

“It worked,” Jack smiled, and the Doctor could feel the waves of relief rolling off his body.

“Oh, I remember you,” Donna smiled slyly, before walking up to Jack and pulling him into a hug. “Nice to see you again.”

“Donna—” Wilfred started.

“I’m _fine_ Gramps, everything’s just a bit muddled at the moment…I’ve got to sort out the memories from not quite me in addition to the ones from the Doctor that I never finished going through…Hold on…am I getting married?” She paused, a shocked expression on her face. She held up her hand and looked at the engagement ring there. “Oh my god, I am!”

“Donna,” the Doctor interrupted, forcing all the distractions out of the way, “you need to calm down and sit down, so I can make sure everything is working fine physically…you’re a Time Lady now, so things are going to be a bit different…By the way,” he returned his attention to the altered chameleon arch, taking the watch from the top of it, “don’t lose this, and don’t let it open. If it does, you’ll go back to being human, and your mind will go back to burning up…and in addition to that, since you’re a Time Lady now, if it opens after you’ve regenerated, you’ll be killed because your human form won’t be able to take the strain of how much you’ve change. Got that?”

“You don’t have to dumb things down for me anymore, bigger brain, remember?” Donna replied.

“That was more for the benefit of our audience,” he nodded his head to the three people watching this exchange with varying expressions of curiosity.

Wilfred, worried about his dearest granddaughter, and trying to take in as much as possible so he can learn about what the Doctor did to fix her, and find ways he could help protect her in the future.

Jack, trying to figure out what kind of effect Donna was having on the Doctor, whether she would help him heal, or if she’d make him worse, and more destructive. Jack took the fact that he didn’t hit her back as a good sign, and the Doctor wasn’t going to do anything to alter that opinion. Let him think what he wants.

The Master however, was watching with morbid curiosity, looking to see just what the Doctor had done to this Earth girl. The Doctor quickly remedied that situation, placing walls around both Donna’s and the Master’s minds, Donna’s so that nobody could take advantage of her mind, and the Master’s so he couldn’t cause more trouble than he already had.

“Oh! Hey! If I’m a Time Lady, does that mean I gotta choose a fancy name now, like the two of you? The Doctor, the Master…wait…the Master…” Donna blinked, and furrowed her brow, as if trying to remember something, and then her eyes shot wide open. “You!” she pointed at the Master, “everyone was turned into you! Mum, Shaun, the neighbors… Doctor, we have to stop him!”

“It’s under control Donna. I’ve already taken care of it,” the Doctor replied emotionlessly.

“Oh, thank god. So you managed to turn everyone back? How?” she asked, sounding relieved. “And you can use all those big science-y words now, ‘cause I’ll understand them!”

“I didn’t.”

“What?”

“I didn’t turn them back. I handled it in a different way,” the Doctor responded, exiting the TARDIS and forcing the Master along with him, the others following.

“What do you mean handled it in a different way?” Donna demanded.

“I altered them so they’re all me instead,” the Doctor responded, gauging her reaction.

“WHAT?” she exploded.

Huh…She seemed upset. Of course she would be, she didn’t realize that things were different now. That he had changed since they’d stopped the Daleks together.

Donna looked around the room, and seemed to realize the other occupants weren’t as shocked as she was.

“You guys all knew he wasn’t going to fix this? How could you just let him think that’s okay? None of you thought to make him change his mind?”

Jack seemed to realize that the Doctor wasn’t planning on explaining himself to the furious redhead in front of them, so he sighed, and decided to do it himself.

“Donna, the Doctor isn’t the same person as he was when you last saw him…a lot has happened since then and he…he doesn’t…he no longer saves people,” Jack finished with a whisper.

“If he doesn’t help, then what does he do?” she whirled around, facing the immortal.

“He…” Jack stopped, bowing his head, unable to continue.

“Go on Jack, tell her,” the Doctor smirked.

“Tell me what?” she demanded at his continued silence.

Jack raised his head, and looked into her eyes, trying to show how much pain he held in them. “He destroys them.”

“That can’t be true,” she said immediately. “Doctor, tell him he’s got it wrong.” When the Time Lord remained silent, she turned to look at him again. “Doctor?”

“It’s more than true. In fact, I’d call it an understatement,” the Doctor smirked at her, taking advantage of the fact she was a Time Lady now, and forcing his destructive thoughts at her. She snapped back as if she’d been physically struck.

“No, no, no, no,” she repeated the word like a mantra. “This is just a joke, right? Ha-ha, you got me, you can stop playing now,” she said, but a quick glance at the somber faces surrounding her quickly broke down that delusion. Except for the Master, who was clearly enjoying himself.

“He’s going to take over the universe!” the Master cackled. “At least, the half he hasn’t destroyed yet.”

Donna was completely silent now, and the Doctor decided to give her a few moments to compose herself, and come to terms with the changes she’d experienced. He pulled her over to one of the grand chairs, and sat her down in it, ignoring the way that she practically jerked away from his touch.

“Sir, sir!” one of the clones ran in, breaking the silence once more.

“What is it?” the Doctor growled, annoyed at the intrusion. This had better be good.

“A meteor just struck the planet, but that’s nothing special. What was inside was…It was a diamond…a Whitepoint star.”

The Doctor gasped, along with the Master, and Donna’s head shot up.

“What? What does that mean, Doctor?” Jack asked.

“A Whitepoint star is only found on one planet…Gallifrey. That’s what the Ood meant. Something’s returning…Gallifrey is. The Time Lords are coming back,” the Doctor said, slightly breathless. “And all we need to make it happen is him,” he pointed at the Master. “His brain.”

“Wait, wait a minute! You remember what they were like! They wanted to rip apart the universe! You shouldn’t want to bring them back! Please, don’t let _me_ be the sane one for once!” the Master stammered out.

“Oh I’m going to bring them back alright,” the Doctor grinned. “And then I’m going to do to them what you planned on doing to the human race. They’ll all be me. Me, in charge of that many Time Lords…it would be so _easy_ to take over the universe! And not just this one! All the parallels as well! Imagine that! Of course, I’ve been in charge of Time Lords before…I was President, twice, but this’ll be so, so much better.”

“Hold on, if you do that…it won’t just bring back the Time Lords…It’ll bring back the entire Time War, it’ll unleash Hell on the universe! You can’t do that, Doctor!” Donna shouted, standing from the chair.

“A necessary sacrifice,” he waved his hand, and she was forced back down. He grabbed the diamond from the clone. “Besides, then I can rebuild it, only better. A perfect universe, full of me. Can you imagine anything superior?”

Using his mind, he forced the other occupants of the room, excluding the clones, into sitting positions, Jack in the chair next to Donna’s, and set to work building the transmitter that would establish the connection to the Time Lock. He set the clones to work collecting the materials he needed, and ignored the glares his former companion was sending him.

“Just wait Donna. You’ll see how brilliant it’ll be, and then you’ll understand why I’m doing this. You’ll thank me! These are your people now too!” He called out as he welded two wires together with his sonic screwdriver.

“I won’t Doctor. I’ll never understand, and I’ll never forgive you. Never,” she said defiantly.

The Doctor scowled at her, before returning to his half-finished work. He caught a few stray thoughts from the people on the floor, something about an old woman’s promise from Wilfred, which he ignored, and the Master solemnly contemplating whether the Doctor intended to kill him in order to complete the transmitter.

“You’re right, Master. I don’t need to keep you alive anymore. We aren’t the last two anymore. Now there’s Donna, and soon there’ll be even more. I could kill you, and it wouldn’t even matter. However, lucky for you and disappointing for me, you need to be alive for the link to work.”

He ignored the Master’s sigh of relief, and instead continued working on the machine.

Donna couldn’t understand what could possibly have happened to cause such drastic changes in the Doctor, but she knew the man in front of her barely qualified as him anymore. Something was dark and twisted inside of him, burning away at all the qualities she’d loved in him. He was like a brother, and it hurt her to see him like this.

She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Jack with a sympathetic expression on his face.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” he said softly, as if he was scared the Doctor would hurt him if he spoke to loudly. Donna noticed that with the physical changes of becoming a Time Lady, there was also the mental aspect, where she could actually feel emotions and thoughts rolling off the people around her. She could sense how terrified Jack was of the Doctor, and from the surface of his mind, she pulled memories of him being tortured…by the Doctor.

Her jaw dropped in horror, and she immediately pulled the man into another hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?” he asked, slightly confused.

“For what he’s done to you,” she replied, and she felt how horrified he was that she knew, and she felt embarrassed, as if she’d been caught looking at him naked or something. “Sorry, still new to the whole mind thing,” she said, pointing at her head.

“It’s…it’s okay,” Jack replied, but still looked slightly shaken up.

Donna frowned, and looked back at where the Doctor was working, and she could physically see everything he was doing, the formulas and calculations appearing in the forefront of her mind, and she understood how the thing worked. Her eyes widened at the flow of information, but it also gave her an idea.

She watched the Doctor, and made sure he wasn’t listening in, before turning back to Jack, and whispering under her breath, “Do you have a gun.”

He looked confused, but nodded. He mouthed the word _why?_

“I have a plan,” she responded in the same manner, and hid the object from sight as he slid it over to her.

He was done. The machine was complete, and the link could now be established. All it would take would be connecting the Master to it, so that it would transmit to the right place.

The Doctor forced the Master to stand, and made him walk over to where the Doctor was standing.

“Please, Doctor,” Donna said. “Please think about what you’re doing, and stop now. You’ll tear apart the universe.”

“This universe is a necessary sacrifice, along with the immediate parallels, but don’t worry, there are plenty more,” he replied, making the last necessary adjustments.

“Doctor, stop this before it’s too late! There’s still time to fix everything!” she cried out.

“Not for long,” he didn’t stop moving.

“Please, just think about what you’re doing,” she begged.

The Doctor looked up and met her eyes, the familiar, warm Donna eyes that were now so full of pain that they were welling up with tears. His finger rested on the button that would activate his amazing machine, and he hesitated as he looked into those eyes that expressed so much with so little effort…

He turned away and made his decision.

 

 


	21. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

_The Doctor looked up and met her eyes, the familiar, warm Donna eyes that were now so full of pain that they were welling up with tears. His finger rested on the button that would activate his amazing machine, and he hesitated as he looked into those eyes that expressed so much with so little effort…_

_He turned away and made his decision._

The Doctor knew he had to do this. He knew he had to. He pressed the button.

The gate flooded with light, and red silhouetted figures slowly started to appear. The light shone brighter, and five Time Lords were standing in front of them.

“My Lord Doctor, my Lord Master…we are gathered for the end,” the one in front, Rassilon stated.

The Doctor looked up, at the five in front of him, and froze.

She was here…She couldn’t be…Of course she was, he was bringing back Gallifrey! She could live again!

She lowered her hands from her face, and he met her eyes.

There was a reason she had been standing like that…She had gone against Rassilon… Which meant that she had voted against Gallifrey’s return… She had decided that her own death was better than the death of millions…

What was he doing? How could he have…How did he let himself become…this?

He released the hold he had on his friends, and entered Rassilon’s head, and used his glove to snap the biological template between himself, the Master, and the human race. The clones that had been in the room started shaking their heads, before snapping back into who they were supposed to be, and immediately fleeing the room.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her.

She tilted her head at him, and that small gesture gave him the affirmation that he was doing the right thing.

“Jack, shoot the Master,” he ordered, not turning away from the Gallifreyans.

“What?” both men exclaimed at once.

The Master leapt to his feet. “Don’t listen to him!”

“Why?” Jack asked, but the Doctor didn’t respond, too busy maintaining his hold on Rassilon’s mind. The president was fighting back with everything he had.

“Oh,” the Master gasped. “The link is in my head. Shoot me, and they go back.”

Jack jumped up, snatching a gun from a holster at his ankle, and pointing it at the Master, but hesitated.

“Now, Jack,” the Doctor gritted his teeth, his concentration slipping a fraction.

“You won’t stop me, Doctor,” Rassilon said, before the Doctor clamped back down.

The building began to shake as Gallifrey began to materialize in the Earth’s atmosphere, and the remaining humans, excluding the Doctor’s friends, fled the room. Wilfred looked behind him, and saw one of the scientists trapped in the glass booth. He leapt to his feet and entered the other side, pressing the button to release the man.

The Doctor gritted his teeth, and entered Jack’s mind also, forcing him to squeeze down on the trigger, until last minute he altered the course and instead made Jack shoot the machine.

“Go back Rassilon. Back into the war; back into hell!”

“You’ll die with me,” the Time Lord said.

“No, I won’t,” the Doctor replied, forcing Rassilon to take a step backwards, and then another, until he was consumed by the light and sent back through the portal.

The quaking reached its peak, before stopping, along with the light, and the five Time Lords were gone, back inside the Time Lock.

The Doctor fell to his knees, and released every mental hold he had, before sinking the rest of the way to the floor.

In an instant, Jack was at his side. “You did the right thing,” he whispered.

“I thought, before I mean, I thought this was going to be my end. There was a prophecy…four knocks and I’m dead, but here I am. It was part of the reason, in the beginning. I had so much more I could do…And changing meant I didn’t have to die.”

“You could always have regenerated,” Jack said softly.

“But it still feels like dying. And then I wouldn’t be me anymore, there’d be somebody else in a new body, sauntering off and calling himself the Doctor, and I’d be gone, just a memory.”

“Well that’s not going to happen. You’re alive, nobody is knocking, and you’re no longer acting all evil,” Jack smiled at his own words.

The two men froze however, when a fist banging on glass was heard.

_Knock, knock, knock, knock._

The Doctor turned around slowly, and saw Wilfred banging on the glass of the booth he was trapped in.

“This thing seems to be making a bit of a noise,” he called out.

“No. No! _NO!_ I refuse! I’m not going to die today, and certainly not for you!” The Doctor shouted, leaping to his feet.

“What are you talking about, Doctor?” Donna looked at him.

“The nuclear bolt was left running,” the Master said.

“And that’s bad, is it?” Wilfred asked.

“No… Because all the excess radiation gets vented inside there. Vinvocci glass contains it. All 500,000 rads, about to flood that thing,” the Doctor offered.

“Oh…Well you better let me out then!” he chuckled.

“Except it’s gone critical. Touch one control and it floods. Even my sonic screwdriver would set it off.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. The universe might intend for me to die in your place, but I won’t. It’s my decision! Look at you! You’re old, going to die soon anyways! You’re not even remotely important, but me? I could do so much _more_! So no, I don’t think I’m going to enter that booth. Goodbye Wilfred.”

“Doctor!” Donna gasped at him, moving to stand next to him. “How dare you?” She raised her hand up to slap him, but he caught it at the wrist, tightening his grip until she winced in pain.

“I will _not_ die today.”

While this was happening, neither noticed Jack edging his way around them to the booth, until they heard the sound of the door release as Wilfred’s snapped open and Jack was trapped with the radiation.

“Well there you go, a solution!” the Doctor ground out, releasing Donna and pushing her away from him.

“He’s going to die!” Donna shouted.

“He’s immortal. He’ll come back,” he replied calmly, over the sound of Jack’s screams.

The others watched in horror as Jack collapsed to the floor of the booth, his screams continuing until the system cut out, and went dark. His body lay there for a moment, until he gasped back to life. He calmly stood, before pushing the door open and stepping out.

“Problem solved,” he said softly, his voice hoarse.

“What now?” Donna asked. “We can’t let him,” she motioned to the Doctor, “go.”

“I reckon the TARDIS will be here in a moment…she isn’t very happy with me,” the Doctor said, and true to his words, the ship materialized in the room only moments later, an angry humming sound coming from within her doors.

“Why is she angry?” Jack asked.

A hologram appeared in the shape of Rose, and said, “He entered my control circuits and forced me to bend to his will.” The hologram crossed its arms.

Jack and Donna both gasped, while the Master looked on in shock.

“Are we sure this is even the Doctor?” the Master asked. “Maybe it’s an imposter.”

The Doctor scoffed.

“It is him,” the TARDIS confirmed.

“Even I wouldn’t be so cruel as to have done that to my ship.”

“If I wanted your opinion I would have asked for it.”

“Doctor, you really shouldn’t say anything more at this point…We still have to decide what to do with you, and you aren’t helping your case very much,” Jack interrupted.

“We have to put him somewhere he won’t cause any more trouble,” Donna contributed.

“What so you’re just going to forget the Master is standing over there?” the Doctor scowled.

“We’ll deal with him too, but right now you’re the greater threat. If we let you go, released you for one second, you could cause innumerable amounts of pain once more,” Jack said.

“Could you keep him at Torchwood? Your facilities would probably have the best security, in order to keep him locked up.”

“But he could still get into any of our minds and make us release him.”

“I could help with that,” the TARDIS interjected. “As long as you move me into your base, I can make sure he stays locked up until he is better,” she said.

“Okay. But my team is… mostly gone,” Jack avoided the word he didn’t want to admit as true.

“I can take you back to years before their deaths occurred. It would not cause a paradox because you are impossible Jack. It is possible for you to exist more than once in the same time stream without catastrophic results.”

“That’s good to know…I’ve always wanted to meet myself,” he smiled lightly.

“But after, I will need to wipe that version’s memory. If you remember what the Doctor turns into, you will try to intervene, probability 100%, with terrible consequences,” the TARDIS said.

“Okay. Now what do we do with the Master?”

“Just to make it clear, I have no intention of harming or killing any of you…the Drums are gone. I had forgotten what I was without them…” the Master offered.

“Is he telling the truth?” Donna asked the TARDIS.

“Yes.”

“I understand that you don’t trust me. I’m willing to remain locked up until I can prove to you that I’m different,” he said.

“I can watch over him also, but I trust the TARDIS’ judgment,” Jack said.

“What about me?” Donna demanded.

“You’ve got a family here, Donna. Your mum and grandfather, your fiancé. You need to spend as much time with them as you can. Remember, you’re a Time Lady now. You’re going to outlive all of them. I promise to send updates to you, and I’m sure if you wanted to visit then the TARDIS could get you, but for now, stay where you are,” Jack said. He pulled her into a hug, before nudging her gently towards Wilfred. “That being said, we best be getting going. Goodbye Donna.”

“Goodbye Jack. Doctor, I hope you can get better soon, and I’ll look forwards to seeing you again once Jack has deemed you healthy enough. Just remember if you ever think you can go off like this again, the consequences will be a lot worse,” she said, but pulled him into a hug anyways. “Be good, Spaceman.”

With those final words, Donna spun around, dragging Wilfred with her, and exited the mansion, returning to her mother and her panicking fiancé.

Jack entered the TARDIS, ushering the two Time Lords in with him, and waited patiently while she flew herself into the Torchwood base, preparing himself for what he’d see there.

Jack sat at his desk, a pen in his hand, as he attempted to do paperwork. Rubbing his face, he pushed the stacks of paper away from him, unable to handle it right now. Suzie’s betrayal still weighed heavily on his mind, along with the new addition of Gwen on the team.

With a sigh, he stood from his desk, but froze when he heard a sound he never thought he’d hear again. The TARDIS.

He sprinted into the hub where the wind was whipping around, and found the rest of his team pointing guns at the blue shape that slowly materialized in the middle of the room.

“Stand down,” he called out, rushing down to where the police box now stood. “It’s a friend.”

“Please, I’m a bit closer than a friend,” a familiar voice laughed, and his jaw dropped as…he stepped out of the TARDIS.

“Why hello there…” Jack smiled at the other version of him.

“No time for that right now,” the other him said gravely.

“Why? Is something wrong with the Doctor? Why do you—me—we have it?”

“You’re not going to like this. It took me a while, when I was you, to accept it as the truth, but please trust me…you…trust what I’m about to tell you. The Doctor…he did some bad things. Well…a lot of bad things. I brought him here to hold him in a cell.”

“What? That’s impossible!” Jack exclaimed, as his team wearily raised their guns again.

“A lot has happened since I was last you…Last time I checked I was in the thousands for my age. A lot has happened for the Doctor also, but I’m trying to make him better. Will you help? There is no better place for him than here…Anywhere else he could just escape,” the other him said.

Examining this older version of himself, he could now see the slight differences. The way he held himself for one, as if he was forcing himself to be strong. He also had more wrinkles, and seemed to have been through much, much more. The most noticeable difference however, was his eyes. The blue was duller, and they held an undying look of utter defeat.

“I believe you,” Jack told the him that was still standing in the doorway of the TARDIS.

“That’s impossible,” Owen chose that moment to break his silence. “Nobody can be a thousand years old.”

“This is before you guys found out…When are we right now?” the TARDIS Jack asked him.

“Just after Suzie,” he said sadly.

“Oh… I don’t know why we hid it from them…It just led to future problems,” the other Jack replied. “I’m immortal. Can’t die. Well—I can, but I always come back afterwards.”

“What?” Owen demanded.

“It’s true,” he reassured his teammate. “I’ll explain more later, but for now, could you guys leave me to talk to…myself.”

They nodded, and returned to their desks, but he knew they were still casting curious looks in their direction.

“How are we talking right now? Shouldn’t we be causing a paradox?” he asked.

“Ah…Well you wouldn’t know yet… It was Rose, that’s why we’re like this. She absorbed the Time Vortex, and brought us back to life, but she couldn’t control it, and she brought us back forever. The Doctor took it out of her, causing him to regenerate. But we’re an impossible thing…the laws of time don’t really apply to us. And as much as I love this distraction, we really should get the Doctor into a cell before he overpowers the TARDIS.”

He gave the other version of him an odd look, before nodding, and stepping inside to help himself get the Doctor to a cell.

His jaw dropped slightly at the sight of this new Doctor. He’d told him that the Doctor had regenerated, but not that he’d regenerated into this. He’d enjoyed the Doctor he had met, but this younger version…

“Jack,” the Doctor acknowledged him coldly. “Made peace with your dead teammates yet?”

“Doc?” he said softly. He couldn’t believe this was the Doctor…He’d sounded so…he couldn’t even put it into words.

“Oh great. You’re the other him. Two Jacks, that’s just what I need.”

“Come on,” he turned as a hand rested on his shoulder. He nodded to the other version of himself, and grabbed one of the Doctor’s arms, the other arm secured in the elder’s grasp, and they marched him down to a row of cells built specifically for hostile telepathic beings.

The Doctor knew where he was going, but he didn’t fight. Now was not the time for fighting, but for healing.

 

 


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Jack sighed as he walked away from the Doctor’s cell. The Time Lord had been especially difficult this week. He refused to respond, and wouldn’t eat or drink anything except when Jack forced him.

He exited into the main portion of the hub, and cast a pained eye towards his not-yet-deceased team members. They looked at him curiously; he’d been at Torchwood for almost month now, and they still knew very little about the situation. But they were all still exactly the same; Owen with his snarky remarks, Tosh creating new pieces of software, Gwen with eyes full of wonder at the new world she was seeing, and Ianto…he forced distance between them. He couldn’t look at him without reliving that day, the knowledge that it was all his fault in the forefront of his mind. He knew logically that it wasn’t, the Doctor would’ve found a way to dispose of Ianto anyways. He just chose the 4-5-6 in an attempt to inflict the greatest amount of pain possible, and it worked. It almost killed Jack every time he saw Ianto in the hub, the same formal attire, same expressions, same _everything_.

And then on top of that, there was the other version of himself wandering around. A younger, more naïve version of himself that couldn’t even begin to comprehend what the future years would hold.

With a sigh, he entered the spare office the younger him had provided, and collapsed at the desk, rubbing his temples. A soft rap on the door made him look up, as Ianto entered with a mug of his infamous coffee and a handful of what he presumed were pain killers.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but you look like you need this,” he raised the coffee slightly higher. “You still take it the same way, I presume?”

Jack caught Ianto’s piercing blue eyes, and forced himself to look away. “Yes, thank you,” he replied stiffly.

Ianto pressed the cup onto the desk, and slammed the pills next to it, before glaring at Jack.

“I can’t even begin to understand part of this situation, but if you have a problem with me, just say it. Did we get into a fight in the future?” Ianto demanded, all in that fiercely polite tone that only he could ever pill off.

Jack didn’t answer for a moment, thinking over the different options he had for this situation, but it was Ianto, and he could never lie to him.

“I…I watched you die,” Jack said softly.

Ianto’s angry expression faded immediately, and he moved over beside Jack, and wrapped his arms around him.

“I watched you die, and it was all my fault,” he said, breaking down for the first time since it happened, while Ianto just held him.

“Well I’m not dead yet, sir, so don’t you think you should be making better use of the time we have left together?” he replied after a few moments.

That was so Ianto…So very Ianto, and that’s why he knew he had to make this decision.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Ianto, but I can’t” Jack said softly, removing Ianto’s arms from around his shoulders. “Too much has happened since the last time…I’m not the same man as I was when I was sitting in that office. I’m not your Jack.”

Ianto froze like he’d been shot, then turned stiffly, and exited the office. He had his back towards Jack, but he knew the man was blinking away tears too.

The Doctor snorted as he heard Jack’s conversation with Ianto. Bored now with that conversation, he fiddled with the knobs on the device he was holding, and instead listened to the sarcastic remarks Owen was throwing at the other members of Torchwood.

The device gave three short beeps, and the Doctor shoved it deep inside one of his pockets, before reassuming his position sitting in the center of the room, staring at the wall blankly.

Jack entered his cell, the younger one this time, he could tell just by looking at him. Playing dumb, he glared at the human.

“Jack. Which one of you is it this time?”

“The one still wondering why you abandoned me back at the game station,” he said softly, shutting the door behind him.

 “Ah. Young Jack. Last time I saw you was on my first day here,” the Doctor grinned. “Tell me, was it because it’s too painful to see me so changed? Although I can’t help but notice you seem quite taken with my new look. The older you likes it too…You should see the way you’ll look at me as I bring the whip down on your back. As I shred the skin from your bones and rip apart your muscles. As I burn you alive, only for you to come back to life, a blank slate so I can start again, the entire time with you staring at me, love in your eyes and the belief you can fix me in your head—”

“ _Stop it!_ ” Jack demanded, pain on his face. “Stop acting like this! This isn’t you! What could have possibly happened to turn you into this?” he shouted.

“Well you could say it started on Mars in 2059. Met a fabulous woman; Adelaide Brooke. One of the greatest women in Earth history, and she was fated to die. I fixed that. Saved the life of one of the greatest people in history. Not one of the puny lives I usually deal with, but one of Earth’s greatest heroes!”

“Adelaide Brooke…” Jack trailed off for a moment. “I learned about her in school. I even wrote a few essays on her. You’re the one that brought her, Yuri, and Mia back to Earth?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said proudly, popping the p.

“Doc, she killed herself on the night it’s believed they returned to Earth.”

“What?” the Doctor froze.

“Captain Adelaide Brooke, savior of the Earth, detonated Bowie Base One on the 21st of November, 2059, and committed suicide shortly after. It was never discovered exactly why, but it is popular belief that everything that happened, the deaths of almost all the people in her command, got to her head, and she killed herself in her grief,” Jack recited.

“No,” the Doctor whispered. He’d saved her! She had her whole life to live, her granddaughter to help raise! She shouldn’t have died!

_It was a fixed point in time…_

Captain Adelaide Brooke, who’d been so brave on Mars, when faced with her own death still made the right decision, unselfishly giving up her life to save everyone else’s, and he’d tarnished her memory. Made her into a coward.

“No,” he whispered, and didn’t even notice as Jack left the room.

 

 


	23. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

 Jack once more entered the Doctor’s cell, this time a banana in his hand along with the normal oatmeal he forced the Time Lord to eat.

To his surprise, the Doctor looked up at his entrance, his eyes full of unspeakable sadness.

“I ruined the legacy of a brave woman. I couldn’t see it myself though, oh no. It was you who revealed me to myself, always you,” he whispered the last part.

“Doc?” Jack barely dared to hope.

At that moment, the Doctor seemed to fully recognize his presence in the room, and he turned away, moving back into the position he had maintained before, only this time slightly haunted, and he looked every single one of his years.

It was barely anything, something so miniscule it could barely even be classified as a thing, yet it gave Jack hope. In that moment, the Doctor had looked truly sorry, but he’d said it was Jack that had made him see. He must’ve been referring to the younger version.

As he made the Doctor eat, he couldn’t help but wonder what the earlier version of him could’ve said to bring about this change, and resolved to ask as soon as he was finished.

The Doctor didn’t respond to anything else during the extent of his visit, and it was only a short amount of time before Jack exited back into the hub.

Today, the desks were empty of curious friends, as a rift alert had gone off just before he entered the cell, and he couldn’t help but be slightly relieved. It was strange, being here in his own past, because the things going on day to day hadn’t happened for him. The latest rift alert, he had absolutely no memory of. He had no memories of being the younger him, meeting this version. When he looked inside his mind, he saw only blank space where he knew the memories should be.

With another sigh (they seemed to be never-ending these days), he walked into the alternate him’s office, barely surprised to see him here, rather than out with his team. Jack knew though, that even now, after everything that happened and everything that would happen, he’d still be here with the Doctor rather than out with his friends, even though he knew their deaths were approaching and he should be cherishing his days with them…He _was_ still here.

“I suppose this means you’re finally going to talk to me,” the other him looked up from the papers sitting on his desk.

Jack nodded. He knew he’d been avoiding conversation, no matter how much or how many times his counterpart had tried. It almost physically hurt to face the younger him, who was still filled with so much hope…

“What did you say to him the other day?” Jack asked. There was no need to mention who the “he” was.

“No,” the younger him said, startling Jack. “First, you're going to tell me what happened.”

Jack sighed. He knew this was coming. He knew this had been coming since they first arrived here. It was one of the reasons he’d been avoiding his counterpart. He refused to meet that steely gaze.

“Surely…it couldn’t have been that bad,” the younger him said softly.

Jack did look up then, staring straight into those familiar eyes, allowing all of his pain, all of his hurt, to show. “It was. Still is,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure exactly _how_ it happened, or why, but the Doctor went bad. Worse than anything we’ve ever faced, and much worse than anything he ever faced also. Instead of helping planets and people, he began hurting them, destroying them. I didn’t know until it was too late…

“He called for help. Told me how to fix the vortex manipulator and told me I was the only one he trusted enough to help him. He was locked up on a prison ship. Someone managed to capture him, risking their life for the sake of the universe, and all it took for him to escape was a few pained glances and well-aimed compliments. You know how we are; we’d do anything for him.

“I got onto the ship, found someone beating him, and killed them and got him out without looking back. Right from the start, he fooled me. It didn’t take much. I brought him to Torchwood, and after the month it took him to heal, I found the TARDIS. He took my vortex manipulator and left to retrieve her. He told me there were only a few people guarding her and that he easily made it past. I only found out later that he slaughtered an entire army to get to her.

“After, he took the remaining members of Torchwood, me, Ianto and Gwen, and Martha and Mickey that you haven’t met yet, for a trip. He took us to a gorgeous planet, and I never noticed anything wrong. I overheard him confiding in a friend of his from the planet, saying he loved me. I’d never been happier in my life, and that was all it took to blind me completely. He went to work on the TARDIS, and Ianto followed him, but I don’t even know if that much is true anymore. Ianto got sick, so very sick, so he took the others back to Torchwood, keeping me and Ianto with him while he claimed to be looking for a cure.” Jack looked the younger him in the eyes. “We got what we always wanted. He came to me one night, and had sex with me. I hate myself for it, but I feel that the time spent with him…it’s almost worth all the pain and suffering. It’s so wrong to say that, and I’m disgusted with myself just for thinking it, but it’s true. It was after that, he… He faked a crash, and met up with the warden from the planet, and then the Doctor killed him and an entire army of men right in front of me with absolutely no effort. Ianto had never been sick; he’d gotten too far, so the Doctor imprisoned him in his mind. He only started a relationship with me to prevent the warden from getting to me and convincing me to help stop him. God knows we’re probably the only one who could, when he’s like this. After what I saw though…I didn’t have it in me to even try. He locked me in a room in the TARDIS, a torture chamber, and I’m pretty sure you can guess what happened in there. He’d go off, destroy a planet or two, and then get bored and come visit me…It was only recently, the Master came back…but you haven’t got that far yet. The Master was—is—an insane Time Lord. He succeeded in destroying the Earth, until the Doctor stopped him and fixed it, before this all happened.

“When the Master came back, he was planning on turning every human on Earth into himself. And then the Doctor hijacked his plan, and made it so that although everyone looked like the Master, it was the Doctor’s mind. He implanted himself in every human being on the planet, and was going to bring back Gallifrey at the expense of every living creature in the universe…and then I’m not entirely sure what happened. One of the women passing through the barrier looked at the Doctor and he changed his mind. He stopped, and ended everything without killing anyone, and it was like he was back to himself…until someone was going to die, someone that he was supposed to change places with and die for before all this happened.

“I took his place instead…radiation is a painful way to die, but not worse than anything we’ve felt before. Afterwards, the TARDIS intervened. She’d finally overthrown the Doctor’s control over her; he’d enslaved her to his will. That’s what happened. She’s the one that is keeping him subdued, and she’s the one that brought us here, saying it would help him. So please, whatever you said yesterday, it did affect him. What was it?”

His counterpart sat there quietly for a moment, his face unreadable, except for the fact that Jack knew himself, and knew the emotional turmoil that was seeping around behind that mask.

“I went in to see him, but you knew that already. The things he was saying… I got upset, and asked him how this had happened to him. He mentioned Mars, 2059 and Adelaide Brooke. If I remember those stories, I’m sure you do too. Apparently it was the Doctor who brought them back to Earth, except the Doctor was under the impression that he’d saved Brooke’s life. From what you’ve said, that event must have been the catalyst. He muttered something about it being a fixed point in time…He must have thought that he changed a fixed point and got away with it, giving him the power to control the universe…”

“But instead she mended it herself, by killing herself. She was braver than all the stories said, to willingly give her life when she could have seen her daughter again, her granddaughter…But instead she fixed another man’s mistakes…”

“Okay. So now that we know, how do we help him?” the younger him asked, his eyes burning again.

“We need to get him to talk to us. To actually share so that he can see his actions were wrong. I’m sure that he knows, deep down, that what he was doing was wrong. I think this was his way of acting out, throwing a temper tantrum since he knew he could get away with it. There were no Time Lords left to stop him. I know the Doctor. _We_ know the Doctor. He was the one that made us see what we were doing was wrong, and he helped us get better. It’s the least we can do to return the favor.”

Both Jacks nodded, sitting easier now that there was a plan in place that they knew would work.

It took a long time. They had known that it would, but they’d also hoped that it wouldn’t. But people didn’t get better in months. It took years.

Jack had been worried about that at first, the years. He might be immortal, but his team and the rest of the world weren’t. There was also the fact about needing to make everyone forget that years had actually passed, but the TARDIS, the amazing girl that she was, had planned for it. They were actually in a time loop, that she had specifically sectioned off for them, while allowing different events to occur each day, although it was the same day, so that no one caught on. The moment the loop started again, all she had to do was remove her presence, forgo giving the Torchwood team back their memory of the previous years, and nobody would remember except those within her walls. Meaning Jack and the Doctor, the Doctor that was now, finally back to himself. And while Jack would still be traveling with him for the foreseeable future to assure he was truly okay, Jack had faith in him.  He’d seen how torn up the Doctor was, after realizing all the blood that was on his hands. After that, they’d had to keep him safe from himself.

But now, the TARDIS had checked his mind, and while he was still torn up, she’d given him a clean bill of health. As a precaution, she still shielded his mind from himself, so he couldn’t use his telepathic ability, but she was sure he was better too.

It was a sad day when they finally departed from the hub. After the Doctor had finally started to improve, Jack had finally been able to mix with his team members again, and while it still hurt like hell to know they were gone back in his own time, he relished every extra moment he got to spend with them. And with himself of course; if you can’t get along with yourself, who can you get on with?

It was all worth it though, as he stood in the center of the hub and watched as the Doctor exited the room that had been his for the past year, after they’d finally let him leave the cell for extended amounts of time, in his signature brown suit, the converse he always wore, and his huge grin, albeit slightly smaller than what it used to be.

The Doctor walked over to the TARDIS, fondly rubbing a hand against the wood, as he looked at Jack.

Jack gave him an encouraging smile, and he nodded slightly in return. He raised one hand and snapped, and for the first time in years, the TARDIS responded to him, easily opening her doors. The Doctor turned back to the younger him and the Torchwood team, and gave them a small smile.

“Thank you, all of you, for helping me. I know I can never return the favor, and none of you will even remember this, but all of you had a part in making me better, and I’ll never be able to tell you how much it means to me.”

While the Doctor only hugged the younger Jack goodbye, Jack gave each member of his team a tight embrace, before laying a hand on his counterpart’s shoulder. “Value your time with each and every one of them.”

The other man just nodded, knowing the words didn’t need to be said out loud.

Jack followed the Doctor into the TARDIS, and shared a grin with the alien, as he pulled the switch that caused the TARDIS to dematerialize.

Their adventures were just beginning. After all, the Doctor had a lot to make up for.

 

 

The End

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp... That's all folks! Thanks for reading/commenting/kudosing/bookmarking/everything else!  
> I might revisit this story one day, to make a sequel, but I honestly don't see that happening any time soon. My life is just too busy right now to devote too much time to writing.  
> However, if anyone who reads this wants to write something in this universe of my creation, go for it! All I ask is that you credit me, and that you also tell me you're doing it, so I get the chance to read it too!  
> Thanks again!
> 
> ~Lilith Kawanami


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